28 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



northern part of the continent, from the Dawson Valley, Queens- 

 land, to the Kimberley Division of Western Australia. It "appears 

 to be very rare on the Dawson but still has a good hold on the 

 wetter coastal country of the Fitzroy" (Finlayson, 1934, p. 226). 

 It is reported as numerous in Arnhem Land, Northern Australia 

 (Le Souef and Burrell, 1926, p. 336) . Its range lies largely outside 

 that of the introduced fox, and its chances of survival are probably 

 better than those of the southern subspecies.] 



Red-tailed Phascogale; Lesser Brush-tailed Pouched Mouse 



PHASCOGALE CALURA Gould 



Phascogale calurus Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1844, p. 104, 1844. ("In 

 the interior of Western Australia" = the Military Station on Williams 

 River, fide Gould, 1863, vol. 1, p. 39.) 



FIGS.: Gould, 1863, vol. 1, pi. 32; Waterhouse, 1846, pi. 14, fig. 2. 



The Red-tailed Phascogale, of South, Central, and Western Aus- 

 tralia, is so rare that few more than a dozen specimens seem to have 

 been placed on record. It is evidently a vanishing species. 



General color ashy gray; under parts creamy white; ears large, 

 nearly naked except at base, where there are some yellow hairs; 

 basal half of tail rusty red above, black below; terminal half bushy, 

 black (Gould, 1844, p. 105) . Head and body, 125 mm.; tail, 147 mm. 

 (Thomas, 1888, p. 297.) 



Shortridge writes (1910, p. 839; map, p. 840) : "Very rare, seem- 

 ing hitherto to have been recorded only four times from Western 

 Australia; once from the Williams River, where it was originally 

 obtained by Gilbert, and three times since from around Kojonup." 

 Glauert (1933, p. 19) gives its range in Western Australia as "Lower 

 South-West from Narrogin to Kojonup"; he adds that it "seems to 

 be rather rare, six specimens only having reached the [Perth] 

 Museum within the last five years." 



For Central Australia Spencer (1896, p. 30) records only a single 

 specimen, taken at Alice Springs, and remarks that it "is evidently 

 not a common form in the' central district." 



"The measurements given in the British Museum Catalogue of 

 1888 are taken from an Adelaide specimen, but I have failed to 

 trace any recent records of the animal in South Australia. . . . 

 To-day it is impossible to define its former range in the State, or, 

 unfortunately, even to attest to its present existence." (Jones, 

 1923, p. 102.) 



Gould's statement of the range (1863, vol. 1, p. xxvii) as the 

 "interior of New South Wales and the colony of Victoria" is ob- 

 viously incomplete and supported by rather meager evidence. How- 



