36 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



pp. 60-61). If this is the western subspecies, the eastern part of 

 Western Australia forms a great blank in its known distribution.] 



Large Spotted-tailed Tiger-cat; Spotted-tailed Dasyure 



DASYURUS MACULATUS (Kerr) 



Viverra maculata Kerr, Anim. Kingdom of Linnaeus, p. 170, 1792. (Based 

 upon the "Spotted Martin" of Phillip, Voy. Botany Bay, p. 276, pi. 46, 

 1789; type locality "the neighborhood of Port Jackson" [Sydney], New 

 South Wales.) 



FIGS.: Waterhouse, 1841, pi. 6 (as D. macrowrus} ; Gould, 1851, vol. 1, pi. 49; 

 Lydekker, 1894, pi. 25; Raven, 1924, p. 25; Le Souef and Burrell, 1926, 

 fig. 86; Fleay, 1932, p. 66, fig. 4, and pi. 5. 



This fierce and rather powerful animal, one of the largest of the 

 carnivorous marsupials, is found in eastern Australia and in Tas- 

 mania. Its range and its numbers have been reduced by settlement, 

 though evidently not yet to the danger point. 



According to Phillip (1789, p. 276), the general color is black; 

 body and tail irregularly blotched with white; tail tapering to a 

 point; head and body, 18 inches; tail, nearly 18 inches. But Water- 

 house (1846, pp. 440-441) and later authorities do not agree with 

 Phillip and Kerr on the general color; it "varies from a very deep 

 brown to a rich red-brown"; under parts "dirty yellow"; head and 

 body, 17-24 inches; tail, 15-20 inches. 



The range includes "south-eastern Queensland, eastern New South 

 Wales, Victoria, south-eastern South Australia, Tasmania" (Iredale 

 and Troughton, 1934, p. 14) . Some of the earlier works extend the 

 range into central or northern Queensland. According to Le Souef 

 and Burrell (1926, p. 322), the species "is fairly common in Eastern 

 Australia, from Cape York to Victoria." Half a century ago Thomas 

 (1888, p. 265) considered it "approaching . . . complete extermina- 

 tion in Australia"; but Ogilby (1892, p. 18) replied that it "is by 

 no means uncommon nor seemingly has it any present intention 

 of dying out in the mountainous and coastal districts of eastern 

 Australia." On the Comboyne Plateau of New South Wales "it 

 appears to be rather uncommon" (Chisholm, 1925, p. 72) . 



In Victoria it was "common in heavily scrubbed country till 

 about 1907, at which time an epidemic of disease almost com- 

 pletely destroyed the species. Has recovered somewhat in recent 

 years and is found in some numbers in the Otway Ranges, and to a 

 lesser extent scattered throughout the Dividing Range." (C. W. 

 Brazenor, in litt., March 3, 1937.) "With the advent of settlement, 

 disease, dogs, guns, traps, and . . . the fox, which exterminates 

 the simple marsupial game of the Dasyure, we have come to the 

 time, in Victoria, of the almost complete disappearance of these 



