38 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



The type specimen was collected by Robert Grant on the Bel- 

 lenden-Ker Ranges, apparently in 1887. The species was next 

 found years later by C. M. Hoy on the Atherton Tableland (Le 

 Souef and Burrell, 1926, p. 324) . The late Henry C. Raven, of the 

 American Museum of Natural History, informed me that he secured 

 two or three specimens about 1922 in the same general region. 



Whatever the factors may be that seem to restrict so decidedly 

 the numbers of the Slender Native Cat, they have not been ascer- 

 tained. 



According to E. Le G. Troughton (in litt., April 16, 1937) , the 

 species is rarely captured because of the density of its mountain 

 rain-forest habitat, and should therefore survive in parts of coastal 

 Queensland for all time. 



Tasmanian Devil 



SARCOPHILUS HARRISII (Boitard) 



Didelphis ursina Harris, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. 9, p. 176, pi. 19, 



fig. 2, 1808. ("Van Diemen's Land.") (Not Didelphis ursina Shaw (1800).) 

 Ursinus harrisii Boitard, Jardin des Plantes, p. 290, "1842" = 1841. (Tasmania.) 

 FIGS.: Geoffroy and Cuvier, Hist. Nat. Mammif., vol. 7, pi. 113, 1842; 



Gould, 1851, vol. 1, pi. 48; Royal Nat. Hist., vol. 3, p. 271, fig., 1894-95; 



G. Smith, 1909, fig. 24; Raven, 1924, p. 25, fig., and 1929, p. 204, fig.; 



Le Souef and Burrell, 1926, fig. 85; Fleay, 1935, pi. 9; Pocock, 1937, 



p. 615, fig.; Reed and Lucas, 1937, p. 89, fig. 33. 



This fierce little beast occurred in past ages on the Australian 

 mainland, where it presumably succumbed to the advancing Dingo. 

 In 1912 a specimen, probably an escaped captive, was taken in 

 Victoria. It "is now confined to Tasmania, where it maintains a 

 rather precarious foothold in the wilder parts of the country" 

 (Jones, 1923, p. 85). 



Whole body and upper part of tail covered with long coarse 

 black hair; irregular blotches of white on shoulders, throat, or 

 rump (G. P. Harris, 1808, p. 176) . It is a thickset, powerful animal, 

 and, except for its tail, resembles a miniature bear in outline. Head 

 and body, 670-825 mm.; tail, 258-300 mm. (Lord and Scott, 1924, 

 p. 267.) 



"These animals were very common on our first settling at Hobart 

 Town, and were particularly destructive to poultry, &c. They, 

 however, furnished the convicts with a fresh meal, and the taste 

 was said to be not unlike veal. As the settlement increased, and the 

 ground became cleared, they were driven from their haunts near 

 the town to the deeper recesses of the forests yet unexplored." (G. P. 

 Harris, 1808, p. 177.) 



"The devil is destructive to sheep all over the colony, and is 



