158 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY, 
teeth in each jaw; and all the teeth much weaker than in the 
preceding genus. 
To the settlers the members of this genus are commonly 
known by the name of Native Cats, but since such names, as 
we have already had occasion to mention, are decidedly objec- 
tionable, we prefer to take an Anglicised form of the scientific 
title. These animals range not only over Australia and Tas- 
mania, but likewise occur in New Guinea and the adjacent 
islands. Unlike the Thylacine and Tasmanian Devil, which are 
purely terrestrial, the majority of the Dasyures are more or less 
arboreal in their habits ; while they are both carnivorous and 
insectivorous. Mr. Thomas suggests, however, that certain spe- 
cies (Dasyurus viverrinus and D. geoffroyi), in which distinct 
and striated pads are lacking on the soles of the feet, are pro- 
bably far less arboreal than the others, since the organs in ques- 
tion seem to be developed pavz passu with the scansorial powers 
of their possessors. Obnoxious, and at the same time well 
known, to the settlers on account of their depredations to the 
hen-roost and the dove-cot, the Dasyures may be regarded as 
playing in Australia the 7é/e of the Martens and Weasels in 
Europe, since they subsist very largely upon birds and, at one 
season of the year, on their eggs. 
I. SPOTTED-TAILED DASYURE. DASYURUS MACULATUS. 
Viverra maculata, Kerr, Linn. Anim. Kingdom, p. 170 
(1792). 
Dasyurus macrourus, Geoff., Ann. Muséum, vol. ii., p. 353 
(1804). 
Dasyurus maculatus, Fischer, Zoogn., vol. ii., p. 584 (1813) ; 
Thomas, Cat. Marsup. Brit. Mus., p. 263 (1888). 
(Plate XXV.) 
Characters.—Size large ; form stout and heavy ; fur thick and 
closz. General colour dark brown (never black) with a rufous 
