116 MAMMALIA. 



Koala, Cnv. — Lipurus, Gold. — Phascolarctos, Blain. 



The Koalas have a short, stout body, short legs, and no tail. The toes 

 of their fore feet, five in number, when about to seize any object, separate 

 into two groups; the thumb and index on one side, and the remaining 

 three on the other. The thumb is wanting on the hind foot; the two 

 first toes of which are united, like those of the Phalangers and the Kan- 

 guroos. One species only is knomi : — 



K. cinerea; Lipurus cinereiis, Gold.; Schreb. CLY, A, a. (The 

 Koala). Ash-coloured; passes one part of its life on trees, and the 

 other in burrows, which it excavates at their foot. The mother car- 

 ries her young one for a long time on her back. 



Finally, our sixth division of the INIarsupialia, or the 



Phascolomys, Geoff".* 



Consists of animals which are true Rodentia, as respects the teeth and 

 intestines, their only relation to the Carnaria consisting in the articula- 

 tion of their lower jaw; and, in a rigorously exact system, it would be ne- 

 cessary to class them with the Rodentia. We should even have placed 

 them there, had we not been led to them by a regular uninterrupted series, 

 from the Opossums to the Phalangers, from the latter to the Kanguroos, 

 and from the Kanguroos to the Phascolomys ; and, finally, were it not 

 that the organs of generation are every way exactly similar to those of the 

 Marsupialia. 



They are sluggish animals, with large, flat heads, short legs, and bodies 

 that look as if they had been crushed, without a tail ; have five nails on 

 each of the fore feet, and four, with a small tubercle in place of a thumb, 

 on each of the hind ones, all very long and fit for digging. Their gait is 

 excessively slow. They have two long incisors in each jaw, almost simi- 

 lar to those of the Rodentia ; and each of their grinders has two trans- 

 verse ridges. 



They feed on grass ; their stomach is pyriform, and their caecum short 

 and wide, furnished, like that of man, and' of the ourang-outang, with a 

 vermiform appendage. The penis is bifurcated, like that of the opossums. 

 One species only is kno\ra, the 



Plias, ursinus; Didelphis ursina, Shaw; Peron. Toy. pi. xxxviii, 

 and called by naturalists the Wombat. Size of a Badger; fur abun- 

 dant, of a more or less yellowish brown. It is found in King's Island, 

 to the south of New Holland, where it lives in its burrow, and multi- 

 plies with facility in Europe. Its flesh is said to be excellent.-j- 



* Phascolomys, a pouched rat, from phaslcolon and mus. 



f M. Bass has described an animal, externally similar to the Phascolomys, and to 

 which he also gives the name of Wombat, but which has six incisors, two canines, 

 and sixteen molars in each jaw. If there is no erroneous combination of the two dif- 

 ferent descriptions, it will form an additional subgenus, to place near the Perameles. 

 Illiger has already established it under the name of Amhlolis, from amblotus, abortus. 

 See Petersb. Mem, 1803—1806, p. 444, and the Bulletin des Sc. No. 72, An. XI. 



