302 PHASCOLOMYS. 



before, a figure of the same specimen appeared in 

 the 6th edition of Bewick's Quadrupeds, published 

 in 1800,* the description only appearing in a later 

 edition of that work. 



About a year after the date of Collins* work, M. 

 Geoffrey published in the " Bulletin des Sciences par 

 la Societe Philomatique," Tom. iii., p. 185, a memoir 

 entitled " note sur un Nouveaux Mammifere decou- 

 vert a la Nouvelle Hollande," which is nothing more 

 than Collins' account with the mistakes. The same 

 author, in the same work, No. 80, p. 149, in the 

 following year (about 1804 12th of the Republic,) 

 publishes a second account, founded upon a specimen 

 brought by the Corvette commanded by Capt. Daudin. 

 In his first account the animal receives the generic 

 name Vombatus, and in the second it is called Phas- 

 colomis. The animal is next described under the 

 name Phascolomys Wombat, in 1807, by Peron and 

 Lesueur, in the " Voyage de decouvertes aux terres 

 Australes," and has subsequently received the names 

 Phascolomys fusca, (Desm.) and Phascolomys Bassii 

 (Lesson.) Misled by the error in the account of 

 the dentition copied by Geoffroy from Collins* work, 

 Illiger imagined the animal originally described under 

 the name Fombatu*, could not be the same as that 

 to which the generic title Phascolomys was afterwards 



* See "Synopsis of the Newcastle Museum," p. 248, where 

 the whole history of the specimen above mentioned is given. 

 The fourth edition of Bewick I have not been able to consult, 

 1 take the date of the edition, therefore, from the Synopsis. 



