70 Zoological Society : — 



Waygeroo, bears a great similarity to No. 3 ; but the reddish spots 

 are less confluent. 



The figure of C. Quoyi, in Quoy and Gaimard, Voy. Urame, t. b, 

 looks like a sj)ecimen of this species intermediate between the ashy 

 and spotted variety, being ashy with darker obscure spots. 



2. CUSCUS BREVICAUDATUS. 



The ears hid in the fur, woolly internally and externally ; tail 

 short ; the forehead ? ; the front lower cutting-teeth broad. 



Female uniform ashy-grey ; rump and base of tail, throat, chest 

 and belly yellowish dirty-white. 



Phalangista nuclicaudata, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, 110. 



Hab. Cape York. 



This species is only known by " a female two-thirds grown, sent 

 from Cape York " to the British Museum by John MacgiUivray, 



It is very like the ashy variety of C. maculatus, but the front 

 lower cutting-teeth are much broader, and the tail, which has the 

 bones still remaining on it, is considerably shorter than any of our 

 specimens of C. maculatus. 



The specimen in the British Museum is that described by Mr. 

 Gould. 



Mr. Gould refers this animal to the subgenus Pseudocheirns ot the 

 genus Phalangista, and calls it P. nudicaudata, because it " differs 

 from all the other Australian members of the genus in having the 

 apical three-fourths of its tail entirely destitute of hair." But Mr. 

 Gould overlooked the fact that it is not a Pseudocheirvs, but a Cus- 

 cus, all the species of which have the major part of the tail naked ; 

 ' and the species under consideration has the naked part of the tail, 

 and indeed the tail itself, shorter than the rest of the species ; so that 

 the specific name oi nudicaudata is singularly inapplicable. 



Tlie light maik on the rump, which Mr. Gould compared to that 

 of tlie Klj<da, is also common to the species of Cnscus, and is pro- 

 bably produced by the habit of the animal sitting on its rump, rolled 

 up into a ball, on the fork of the branches of trees. 



The skull shows that the animal is nmch younger than the label 

 indicates, as it ap])ears only to have the milk teeth, and the broad 

 lower incisors of the younger specimens of this genus. The skull 

 differs both from that of C. ursi^ws and C. maculatus, but it is too 

 voung to predict what may be the normal form of the adult animal. 

 The front half of the space between the eyes is rather convex, but 

 not nearly so nmch so as the young skull of C. macxdatus ; and the 

 front of the forehead just behind the convexity described is rather 

 concave ; this concavity has no resemblance to the deep concavity 

 occupying nearly the w'hole space between the eyes in C. ursinus and 

 C. maculatus. 



3. CuSCUS URSINTJS. 



Ears almost hidden in (he fur, clothed with fur internally and ex- 

 ternally ; fur hlackish-asb, with larger silvery hairs; head, throat 



