THE TRUE BANDICOOT. 135 
long, soft, and silky. General colour pale yellowish-fawn; 
under-parts and limbs white. Ears thinly clothed with fine 
silvery hairs ; greater portion of soles of hind feet hairy. Tail 
moderate, slender, tapering, short-haired, and, except on the 
upper surface of the terminal third, uniformly white. 
Distribution. Probably Central or North-Central Australia. 
This interesting species is only known from a specimen 
of a very young male preserved in the collection of the 
British Museum. While agreeing in all other essential features 
with the typical representative of the genus, this species makes 
a remarkable approximation in the structure of its upper teeth 
to the genus Perame/es, and thus serves to indicate that the 
Rabbit-Bandicoots are in all probability a specialised offshoot 
therefrom. 
THE TRUE BANDICOOTS. GENUS PERAMELES. 
Perameles, Geoffr., Bull. Soc. Philom., vol, iii, No. 80, p. 
249 (1803). 
Form varying from a stout and clumsy to a light and delicate 
figure; muzzle long and Pig-like; ears variable in length ; 
fore feet with the first and fifth toes short and clawless, and 
the three middle ones subequal, with powerful curved claws ; 
hind feet with the first toe (hallux) short and clawless, the 
second and third toes with flat twisted nails, the fourth long 
and powerful, with a stout pointed claw, and the fifth similar 
but smaller. Tail tapering, short-haired, or nearly naked. Six 
or eight teats. Usually five pairs of upper, and three of lower 
incisor teeth; upper molars either triangular or quadrangular, 
with numerous sharp cusps. 
The true Bandicoots, of which there are upwards of some 
