266 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XVI, 



more buffy yellow; chin and upper throat similar, but with the hairs 

 tipped with dark brown, giving a darker effect. Head pattern quite 

 well-defined, the light areas buff (not white) and the dark areas 

 blackish or blackish brown. The central head stripe begins on a 

 line opposite the front border of the eyes, and gradually widens 

 posteriorly to the nape; the loral stripes begin about half-way be- 

 tween the nose and the eyes, and extend back, enclosing the eyes, 

 nearly to the base of the ears, but less well defined and broader behind 

 than in front of the eyes; sides of head below the ears buffy yellow. 

 The head markings are generally indistinct in adults, well defined in 

 young specimens and in exceptional adults. The light areas on each 

 side of the median dark stripe form a distinctly lighter oval spot 

 above and behind the posterior half of the eyes. Ears very large, 

 wholly black. Fore and hind limbs black, including the toes, which 

 (as usual in the genus) are semi-nude. Tail a little shorter than head 

 and body, covered as usual at the extreme base by long hair like 

 that of the adjoining part of the body, the rest naked, the basal half 

 or more black, the remainder flesh-color. 



This is the usual style, which varies on the dorsal surface to practi- 

 cally black, and to much darker below. 1 The light face markings are 

 often nearly obsolete, being reduced to a dark buffy round spot over 

 the eyes, with another on the posterior part of the cheeks. The under- 

 fur is often strongly yellowish white on the back and bright buff below, 

 the extreme base being ochraceous buff, as in nearly all of the mem- 

 bers of the marsupialis group, due apparently to a sebaceous secretion. 



Young. The nursing young are similar to the adults in coloration, 

 both in the gray and black phases, except that the head markings 

 are more pronounced, and the ears are white or flesh-color, more or 

 less blotched with dusky, chiefly towards the base. In very young 

 specimens the ears are doubtless wholly white to the base, as in the 

 other members of the genus. In a series of 15 specimens from Piquete" 

 and Cruziero, Sao Paulo (coll. A. Robert), the 9 adults have wholly 

 black ears and the 6 young have particolored ears, the apical half or 

 more being flesh-colored and the basal portion dusky or mottled with 

 dusky. There is also rather less black at the base of the naked, 

 portion of the tail in the young than in the adult. The toes are 

 wholly black in all, although Burmeister has described the toes as 

 pinkish or flesh- col or. 



In the young (less than one-sixth grown) of this species the head 

 markings are almost as distinct as in the young of corresponding age 

 of D. Paraguay ensis, but the dark and light areas are less sharply 

 contrasted, the light areas being buffy white instead of clear white, 

 and the dark areas brown-black instead of deep black. 



1 Hensel (/. c.~) states that of 40 individuals of which he had noted the color, 1 5 were 

 black and 25 were white. 



