PETAURUS FLAVIVENTER. 287 



under parts of the body are of a dirty yellow colour_, 

 generally very pale, and sometimes dirty yellow- 

 white ; near the outer margin the flank membrane 

 beneath is always dusky or greyish ; a fringe of 

 longish hairs, which descends from the posterior and 

 lower margin of the ear, is for the most part brown- 

 ish-white, but the remaining far on the back of the 

 ear at the base, is blackish. The tail is generally 

 coloured like the upper surface of the body, but the 

 apical portion is black. The fur on the hinder-feet, 

 and that on the back of the leg, is long. The outer 

 toe of the fore-foot is as long as that which is next 

 to it ; in P. Taguanoides it is decidedly shorter. 



Length from nose to root of tail, 14 inches ; tail, 19 

 inches; nose to ear, 2 inches 3 lines; ear, 1 inch 9 lines; 

 tarsus, 1 inch 7^ lines ; fore-foot, 1 inch 6 lines. 



Habitat, New South Wales — " Scrubs neai' Liver- 

 pool Plains" according to the Catalogue of the Aus- 

 tralian Museum. 



Easily distinguished from other species of the genus, 

 described in this work, by the great length of its ears. 



The Hepoona Roo of White's Journal, the original 

 also of Shaw's Didelphis Petaurus, is still in existence 

 in the Museum of the College of Surgeons ; it proves 

 to be the present species, and not the P. Taguanoides, 

 as has always been supposed. This ought therefore 

 to be regarded as the type of Shaw's genus Petaurus 

 — if authors are right in attributing that genus to 

 Shaw, — but I do not perceive that he ever regarded 

 the animal in question as constituting a genus, or 

 that he applied the name in a generic sense. 



