ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 77 



gested by Messrs. Barnard, it is probable that these wombats were 

 much more numerous in earlier years, but successive periods of 

 drought have brought them to the verge of extinction. . . . The 

 specimen shot . . . has been feeding on ... stems and leaves, 

 including awns of the Comet River Grass, Perotis rara" (Longman, 

 1939, pp. 283, 286-287.) 



Longman adds a report of Wombats seen distinctly about 1917 

 in the Tambo district, south-central Queensland. 



Family MACROPODIDAE: Kangaroos, Wallabies, etc. 



This largest of marsupial families contains approximately 19 

 genera and 125 forms. It ranges through Australia, Tasmania, New 

 Guinea, and neighboring islands. Accounts of 27 forms appear in 

 the following pages. 



St. Francis Island Rat-kangaroo 



BETTONGIA sp. 



This extinct animal, a former inhabitant of one of the islands in 

 the Great Australian Bight, does not seem to be represented in the 

 museums by so much as a skeletal fragment upon which a technical 

 name might be based. Its brief and tragic history is recounted by 

 Jones (1924, pp. 214-215) : 



Upon St. Francis Island in Nuyts' Archipelago there lived, during the 

 time of the present occupiers, large numbers of what was evidently a species 

 of Bettongia. Since the mammalian fauna of the islands of the Bight has 

 proved, in so many instances, to exhibit distinctions from the types inhabiting 

 the mainland, it is worth while recording what can still be ascertained con- 

 cerning this interesting and recently exterminated animal. 



When the island was first settled, some forty years ago, "Rat-Kangaroos," 

 or "Tungoos" were swarming. The animals do not seem to have formed 

 burrows, but they lived in the undergrowth, and used frequently to hop into 

 the homestead to take bread or other eatables thrown to them from the 

 table. They do not appear to have been nocturnal; they do not seem even 

 to have been afraid of the human invaders of the island. Their only offence 

 seems to have been that they had a liking for the garden produce of the 

 family who settled on the island. 



Cats were introduced in order to exterminate the Tungoos, and their work 

 has been done completely. To what species the animal belonged can never 

 be known and the fact of its extermination in this manner is much to be 

 regretted. 



There are many islands in the vicinity of St. Francis to which some 

 members of the original colony could have been transported, and so given a 

 chance to survive. 



The story is one of importance from the point of view of legislation for 

 the protection of insular faunas, since it demonstrates clearly how rapidly 

 and how completely an interesting island fauna may be destroyed and lost 

 to science for ever. 



