114 CONILURUS. 
cannot, therefore, be utilized again. The species on which the 
genus Conilurus was founded was named by its describer C. 
constructor, but further researches have proved its identity with 
the Hapalotis albipes of Lichtenstein. Major Mitchell’s original 
specimens were forwarded to the British Museum under the name 
of ‘Native Rabbit,” and the generic term selected above is 
intended to signify a “small rabbit with a long tail.” 
These graceful little animals supply in Australia the place of 
the Jerboas of Africa, South-eastern Europe, and Southern and 
Central Asia. 
1, ConILuRUS ALBIPES, Lichtenstein, sp. (1827). 
White-footed Jerboa-Rat. 
Tail equal in length to the head and body or but little shorter ; 
fur long, soft, and close. Upper surface of the head and body, 
the ears, flanks, and outer surface of the limbs gray, tipped with 
ashy-brown, interspersed with numerous fine black-tipped hairs ; 
whiskers and a narrow band encircling the eye black ; under 
surface of body, inner surface of limbs, hands, and feet white ; 
tail above dark brown, sides, below, and extreme tip white. 
Dimensions.—Head and body to ten inches ; tail about the 
same length. 
Habitat.—South-eastern Australia ; southern portion of South 
Australia. 
References.—Ogilby, Trans. Linn. Soc. 1838, xviii. (description) 
p. 126, as C. constructor ; Gray, Ann. Nat. Hist. ii, 1839, p. 308; 
Gould, Mamm. Austr. iii. pl. i. 
Note.—According to Gould this species, though widely dis- 
persed within the limits indicated above, is nowhere very abun- 
dant. It is “strictly nocturnal in its habits, sleeping during the 
day in the hollow limbs of prostrate trees, or such hollow branches 
of the large Hucalypti as are near the ground, in which situations 
it may be found curled up in a warm nest of dried leaves.” Fossil 
remains of this species have been obtained in the Pleistocene of 
New South Wales. 
The following remarks from the pen of Sir George Grey touch- 
ing the method of carrying its young, adopted by this species and 
possibly by others of its congeners, but so totally at variance with 
the habits prevailing in the intimately allied genus Mus, are 
worthy of reproduction ; he writes, ‘The specimen I send you, 
a female, had three young ones attached to its teats when it was 
caught: the mother has no pouch, but the young attach them- 
selves with the same or even greater tenacity than is observable 
in the young of Marsupiata (Meraruerta of this Hand-list, 
Hu 
