ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 51 



"Barred Bandicoots become very tame and familiar in captivity, 

 but . . . they are desperately pugnacious among themselves. On 

 one occasion eight live specimens were sent from Ooldea. All eight 

 were dead . . . when they arrived in Adelaide. . . . But among the 

 corpses were four pouch young, which were uninjured. ... In the 

 end they all recovered." A female from this lot eventually bred 

 freely in captivity. Two young were generally found in a litter. 



Rabbit-eared Bandicoot; Rabbit-bandicoot; Bilby; Dalgite; 



Pinkie 



MACROTIS LAGOTIS LAGOTIS (Reid) 



Perameles Lagotis Reid, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1836, p. 129, 1837. ("In 



Australia Occidentali et in Terra Van Diemen." Thomas (1888, p. 225) 



lists the type specimen from "Swan R., W. A.") 

 FIGS.: Waterhouse, 1841, pi. 12, and 1846, vol. 1, pi. 13, fig. 1; Gould, 1845, 



vol. 1, pi. 7; Le Souef and Burrell, 1926, fig. 79; Pocock, 1937, p. 617, fig. 



(subsp.?). 



The several subspecies of this Australian animal (lagotis, cam- 

 brica, grandis, interjecta, nigripes, and sagitta) seem to be more or 

 less seriously reduced in numbers; one is apparently on the verge 

 of extinction, and another quite extinct. They will be treated in turn. 



Concerning the group as a whole, Jones says (1924, pp. 164-167) : 



By the early colonists the Bilby was not only regarded as an animal against 

 which the methods of the exterminator need not be employed; it was even 

 accorded a certain amount of protection, and was at times kept as a pet 

 about the house. The tolerance with which it was regarded by people whose 

 hands may be justly said to have been against all animals was due to the 

 fact that it was recognised that, in the destruction of mice and insects, it 

 played an extremely useful part. Unfortunately this regard for the Bilby 

 seems to have been forgotten by a later generation, and in more recent days 

 but little mercy has been shown to them by any section of the community. . . . 



The reason for the rapid decrease in numbers of the Bilby is not quite 

 obvious. Certainly these useful animals have been ruthlessly slaughtered in 

 all districts within reach of the more settled areas. Their pelts have been 

 marketed in the skin sales in Adelaide in very large numbers; and they have 

 been more wantonly killed for "sport." Large numbers have been killed or 

 maimed in steel traps set for rabbits, and possibly many have fallen victims 

 to poison baits. As with all the more defenceless marsupials, the introduced 

 fox has probably played its sinister part. But in the Centre, where the fox 

 is still absent, or rare, and where the Bilby is but little molested by man, it 

 seems that some other factor must be invoked; and this is probably the 

 extraordinary abundance of rabbits, and the consequent struggle for breeding 

 burrows. There is certainly no part of this State [South Australia] where the 

 Bilby is not a rapidly disappearing animal. 



Troughton remarks (1932, p. 221) : "According to Wood Jones, 

 one or two constitutes the usual litter [in members of this genus], 

 although there are eight teats, and it seems possible that a reduced 



