ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 27 



markable thing that so well equipped a carnivore should have been reduced 

 to a condition bordering on extinction in so comparatively short a time. 

 What its range within the State may have been is difficult to determine. 

 It was not met with by the Horn Expedition, but an animal which answers 

 very much to its description, but of which no specimen is available, apparently 

 exists over a wide area in the Centre. By the South Australian Murray River 

 natives it was well known under the name of "Pundi" but it has not been 

 seen in their district for very many years. (Jones, 1923, p. 101.) 



Shortridge comments (1910, p. 839; map, p. 841) on its status 

 in Western Australia as follows: 



"Although not plentiful this species seems to have a more general 

 range in South-Western Australia than the smaller Phascogales. 



"Doubtfully recorded from as far inland as Kalgoorlie, where it 

 would probably be only a straggler. . . . 



"Occasionally frequenting the neighbourhood of farms, where 

 according to natives they come after mice." 



According to Glauert (1933, p. 19), it occurs in the southwest of 

 Western Australia, from Fremantle to the south coast and inland 

 to Merredin. Twenty specimens had been received at the Perth 

 Museum in the preceding five years. 



For many years since the ravages of disease during the years 1898-1900, 

 that agile and courageous little killer, "the brush-tailed rat" of the bushman, 

 has been very scarce in the majority of its old haunts in Victoria and New 

 South Wales. . . . 



The black "bottle-brush" tail and coat of 'possum-grey fur, combined with 

 the amazingly agile movements of this lithe rat-sized marsupial, at once excite 

 admiration. However, few people have enjoyed the spectacle of the nocturnal 

 and arboreal creature making its lightning movements up and down the 

 Eucalypt trunks "corkscrewing" round the boles to elude observation, or 

 else bounding lightly, like a squirrel, from tree to tree. (Fleay, 1934, p. 89.) 



In Victoria, according to C. W. Brazenor (in litt., March 3, 1937) , 

 the animal is "holding its own and common in timbered country." 



Le Souef and Burrell (1926, pp. 333-336) give the following 

 account: "Some species, notably the brush -tailed and the lesser 

 brush-tailed phascogales, are now rather scarce over the greater 

 part of their range, having been greatly reduced by disease, which 

 swept off large numbers of native animals in 1898-9-1900. Cats 

 have also been very destructive. . . . 



"This species is more carnivorous than most members of the 

 family. Moreover, it is very useful, in that it seems especially to 

 catch rats and mice. There are instances of it following up plagues 

 of these rodents and doing a good deal toward thinning them out." 



E. Le G. Trough ton (in litt., April 16, 1937) regards it as an 

 active and resourceful species, whose survival is apparently assured, 

 at least in the mountainous regions of its range. 



[A northern subspecies (P. t. pirata Thomas, 1904; type locality, 

 "South Alligator River," Northern Australia) ranges across the 



