168 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 
Characters—Size medium; fur coarse. General colour 
freckled reddish-grey ; under-parts dull white or yellowish; a 
whitish ring round each eye. Ears short and rounded, clothed 
on both surfaces with short grey hairs. Front and outside of 
fore leg rufous, remainder of outer surface of limbs, as well 
as the feet, grey ; soles of feet granulated, the pad of the hallux 
rarely divided. Tail short, hairy, coloured above like the back, 
inferiorly grey or yellowish-grey, and the extreme tip black. 
Eight teats. Length of head and body about 5 inches; of tail 
3 inches. 
D:stribution.—West, and probably also North, Australia. 
Habits—This Pouched Mouse is found not uncommonly in 
the neighbourhood of the Swan River and King George’s 
Sound, and is known to the settlers of the last-named district 
by the name of the ‘“ Dibbler.” A correspondent of Gould, 
who was fortunate enough to find a female with young, states 
that these were seven in number, and quite naked and blind. 
He observes that above the teats of the mother there “is a 
very small fold of skin, from which the long hairs of the under- 
surface spread downwards, and effectually cover and protect 
the young. This fold in the skin of the abdomen is the only 
approximation to a pouch which I have found in any of the 
members of the genus. The young are very tenacious of life ; 
those mentioned above lived nearly two days attached to the 
mamme of the dead mother.” 
Ill. CHESTNUT-NECKED POUCHED MOUSE. PHASCOLOGALE 
THORBECKIANA. 
Phascologale melas, Schlegel and Miller, Verhandl. Nat. Ges., 
p- 149 (1839-44). 
Phascologale thorbeckiana, Schlegel, Ned. Tijdschr. Dierk., vol. 
iii., p. 257 (1866); Thomas, Cat. Marsup. Brit. Mus., p. 
278 (1888). 
