ee 
i — 
THE RING-TAILED PHALANGERS. 95 
Phalangista banksit, Gray, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i., p. 107 
(1838). 
Phalangista lanuginosa, Gould, Mammals of Australia, vol. i., 
pl. xx (1858). 
Pseudochirus caudivolvulus, Jentink, Notes, Leyden Mus., 
vol. vii., p. 22 (1884). 
Pseudochirus peregrinus, Thomas, Cat. Marsup. Brit. Mus., 
p. 172 (1888). 
(Plate XJT.) 
Characters.—Size large; fur shorter than in the preceding 
species. General colour grey or rufous in variable proportions; 
under-parts white, greyish-white, or rufous; region round the 
eyes frequently conspicuously rufous; ears rather large, their 
backs generally grey anteriorly, with the posterior white patch 
distinct, sometimes uniformly rufous. Outer side of limbs 
rufous ; feet white or pale rufous; tail with the middle third 
black or nearly so, from one to four inches of the tip white, 
naked inferior portion from one to four inches in length, 
smooth, and transversely striated. Length of head and body 
about 16 inches ; of tail 14 inches. 
Distribution Eastern Australia, from Southern Queensland 
to South Australia. 
Habits.—T his species, which rejoices in a number of syno- 
nyms, and was long confounded with P. cookt, is an animal 
scarcely more than half the size of the common True Phalanger, 
Nowhere so common as the latter, and but seldom met with in 
the gum-trees, the Ring-tailed Phalanger generally frequents the 
so Called tea-tree scrub, where it lives in small colonies, and 
constructs a nest not unlike that of the common Squirrel. 
Although there is usually but a single offspring produced at a 
birth, it is stated that as many as three young may occasionally 
be found in the pouch of the female. The flesh is much less 
