ORDER MARSUPIALIA: MARSUPIALS 



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in the neighbourhood of Kingston. Being by far the fleetest of all 

 the wallabies, its chase was at one time a very popular form of 

 sport, and its beautiful pelts have been marketed in very large 

 numbers in the salesrooms of Melbourne. ... It is not correct to 

 say that this very fine and distinctly South Australian wallaby is 

 extinct, for at the present moment five or six individuals still exist. 

 Any effort to preserve this remnant must be made immediately and 

 with vigour if it is to be of any service whatever." (Jones, 1924, 

 p. 245.) 



FIG. 17. Toolach (Wallabia greyi). From photo. 



Finlayson furnishes an extensive account (1927, pp. 367-369), 

 from which the following excerpts are taken: 



The Toolach ... in all parts of its range showed a marked partiality for 

 grass country .... In the typical desert country of the counties of Russell 

 and Buccleuch, where grass flats are few and far between, it occurred but 

 sparsely, and here appeared to be comparatively solitary, but in the lower 

 south-east, where richer soils permit a far greater development of grasses, 

 its undoubted instinct towards gregariousness asserted itself, and when the 

 country was first settled it was here established in a series of isolated colonies 

 .... The groups . . . showed marked partiality for certain quite restricted 

 areas, from which they were only driven by persistent persecution, and to 

 which they returned again and again. . . . 



A considerable weight of evidence inclines me to the belief that in point 

 of numbers M. greyi fell far short of the four other species of Macropus in 

 the district. Although human persecution and the occupation of its chosen 



