THE SQUIRREL PETAUEIST, OE SUGAR SQUIREEL. 295 



the manner in which they balance themselves on the 

 slender branches of the trees which they frequent. 



One of the prettiest of these animals is shown in 

 the lower corner of Plate V., and is popularly known 

 as the Sugar Squirrel, though it is not a squirrel, or 

 even a rodent, and though the sugar-cane is not an 

 Australian plant. 



The general structure of this animal is very much 

 like that of the colugo ; and, indeed, it would be easy 

 to put a colugo among a number of petaurisfcs, and for 

 the distinction between them not to be noted, except 

 by a tolerably skilled naturalist. In the petaurists, 

 the skin is extended exactly as it is in the colugo, 

 the principal difference lying in the tail. In the 

 colugo, the skin-membrane extends to the end of the 

 tail, but in the petaurists it gets no further than the 

 root of the tail. This organ, however, is clothed with 

 very long and dense hair projecting on either side, and 

 answering the same purpose which is fulfilled in the 

 colugo by the skin membrane. 



The animal which is represented in the illustration 

 is a pretty little creature, measuring about eight 

 inches from the nose to the tip of the tail. It is 

 rather remarkable that the tail is just as long as the 

 body, and as it is clothed with very long hair, it adds 

 much to the power of sustentation as the creature 

 takes its sweeping flights. 



The power of flight, if we may so call it, in this 

 creature is very remarkable, one of these animals 

 having been seen to leap across a river forty yards in 

 width, though it only started from an elevation of 

 thirty feet. 



