ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 81 



certain districts in the North- West. Here it lives in company with the 

 rabbits, sharing the larger warrens with them .... The choice of a warren 

 seems largely to be determined by the quantity and nature of the herbage 

 in the neighbourhood, for in these waterless districts Rat Kangaroos are 

 dependent on the succulent sand hill vegetation. Rabbits are so universally 

 spread over the country that there probably does not exist to-day a Bettongia 

 colony living in its own burrows. It has thrown in its lot with the rabbit, 

 and although it appears to have its own appartments [sic] in the complicated 

 system of the large warrens, it is merely a tenant, forming a part of a 

 community in a manner which is rather remarkable when its exceedingly 

 pugnacious character is considered. Nevertheless, though it lives in apparent 

 harmony with the rabbits, and avails itself of the shelter of their burrows, 

 it is suffering for the partnership. The remnant of the Tungoos is living in an 

 environment in which there is a severe competition for succulent food. In 

 good seasons there is enough juicy herbage for cattle and rabbits as well as 

 Rat Kangaroos but in bad seasons the rabbits and the marsupials perish 

 in large numbers. Such losses among the rabbits are soon made good, but 

 with the marsupials this is not the case, and probably the end of the Tungoo 

 is not far off. When times are bad, and when the cattle and rabbits have 

 eaten all the herbage of the sand hills, the Tungoos become extremely bold, 

 and will enter a homestead in their search for anything to eat. They will 

 come into a room and boldly face a cat in order to obtain some potato peelings ; 

 they will scramble over a paling fence four or five feet high in order to get 

 at the vegetable garden. They are bold and enterprising little animals which 

 have made, and are making, a brave struggle against what seems an almost 

 inevitable extermination. In the more cultivated districts of the South, 

 where food is in plenty, the wholesale scattering of poisoned pollard has led 

 to their complete extinction. The poison cart has done its deadly work on 

 the slowly-breeding Tungoo, although the rapidly-breeding Rabbit has sur- 

 vived the ordeal. In the North they are steadily being pressed out of exis- 

 tence by the competition for food. 



When we remember that their numbers in rabbit warrens, even near to 

 towns, was a source of constant annoyance to rabbiters less than twenty 

 years ago, we can realise how destructive to the native herbivorous fauna the 

 wholesale spreading of poisoned grain has proved to be. Nor must we forget 

 that the remnant which still struggles on in the North is now exposed to the 

 ravages of the fox. 



Concerning the introduction of this rat-kangaroo on Kangaroo 

 Island, South Australia, Waite and Jones say (1927, p. 323) : 

 "Specimens bred and reared in captivity in Adelaide were liberated 

 within the observation enclosure on the reserve and seem to be 

 doing well. If, when they are turned out into the larger world, they 

 can avoid the goana (Varanus) they should prosper." 



H. H. Finlayson (in litt., March 20, 1937) regards the species as 

 a whole as common in Western Australia, the Center, and north- 

 western South Australia. 



