Marsupials and Monotremes 



375 



THE NATIVE CATS. 



The animals common in Tasmania and throughout the greater portion of the Australian- 

 Continent, and familiarly known as SPOTTED or NATIVE CATS, and to zoologists as DASYURES, 

 enjoy also an unenviable reputation for their depredations among the settlers' hen-roosts. To 

 look at, these native cats are the most mild-mannered and inoffensive of creatures. Actually, 

 however, they possess the most bloodthirsty proclivities, and may be aptly compared in their 

 habits to the stoats, weasels, polecats, and other Old World carnivora. There are some five known 

 species, the largest being equal to an ordinary cat in size, and the smaller ones about half 

 these dimensions. All of them are distinguished by their spotted pattern of ornamentation, 

 such spots being white or nearly so, and more or less abundantly sprinkled over a darker 

 background which varies from light grey to chocolate-brown. In the commonest form, represented 

 in the accompanying photograph, the ears and the under surface of the body are also often 

 white. No two individuals, however, are to be found precisely alike in the pattern of their 



Sy permission of S. Sinclair, Esq.] [Sydney. 



SPOTTED DASYURES, OB AUSTRALIAN NATIVE CATS. 

 This species is rather smaller than an ordinary-sized cat. All the dasyures are aboroal in their habits, and very destructive to birds. 



markings. The dasyures differ from the two preceding types, the Tasmanian wolf and the 

 devil, in being essentially arboreal in their habits, living by day and breeding, as the majority 

 of the Australian opossums, in the hollow gum-tree trunks, from which they emerge at nightfall 

 to seek their food. This, in their native state, when hen-roosts are not accessible, consists- 

 mainly of birds and such smaller marsupial forms as they can readily overpower. 



THE POUCHED MICE. 



The so-called POUCHED MICE represent a group of smaller-sized carnivorous mammals which 

 have much in common with the dasyures, but are devoid of their spotted ornamentation. 

 None of them exceed a rat in size. They number about twelve or fourteen known species, 

 and are distributed throughout the greater part of Australia and New Guinea, and extend 

 thence to the Aru Islands. They are said not to occur in the extreme north of the 

 Australian Continent. The writer, however, obtained an example of the brush-tailed species, 



