300 Mr. T. S. Palmer on Thjlacomys, Oioen. 



mummied dogs in my possession, which have apparently not 

 been properly embalmed, but only dried, and still they show 

 the soft parts well preserved (though, of course, completely 

 dried up and shrivelled) ; and on moistening them with 

 water, as I have often done, one obtains a preparation of the 

 skeleton very similar to that which Barrett-Hamilton obtained 

 from the mummied lemmings from the cave in Athouguia. 

 As til is cave, from the careful account of Gadow, was abso- 

 lutely dry and had been so from the time thrtt the dust was 

 deposited, there is no reason why the lemmings should decay. 

 They have been preserved completely, in spite of the length of 

 time during which they have lain in the dust of the cave. 



It is to be hoped that the Portuguese palaeontologists will 

 shortly find other lemming-remains in their country. The 

 present paper may afford them some incentive in that 

 direction. 



XXXI.— On Thylacomys, Owen. By T. S. Palmer. 



In 1837 Reid * described the peculiar rabbit-bandicoot of 

 Western Australia, from a specimen taken on Swan River, 

 under the name Perameles lagotis. The distinctions between it 

 and previously described species of Peramehs were so marked 

 that he suggested that the new form might be considered a 

 distinct subgenus under the name Macrotis. This name, 

 however, having been previously employed in entomology by 

 Dejean in 1833, was untenable and has never come into 

 general use. 



Three years later, in 1840, Blyth f adopted Reid's sugges- 

 tion, but used Thylacomys for the genus on the authority of 

 Owen. Blyth's explanation is as follows: — " Two or three 

 more [bandicoots] have been indicated, one of which, P. la- 

 gotis, Reid, is ranged by Prof. Owen as The Philander 



[Thylacomys, Owen) The only known species 



[Per. lagotis, Reid) is a nimble-looking and handsome animal, 

 greyish, and as large as the common opossum." 



In 1841 Gray \ made P. lagotis the type of his subgenus 



• Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1836, no. xlviii. pp. 129-131 (June 27, 

 1837). Reid states that his specimen came from Van Diemen's Land ; 

 but according to TLomas the type specimen in the British Museum is 

 from Swan River, Western Australia. 



t Cuvier's ' Animal Kingdom,' 1840, p. 104; 1863, p. 92. I have not 

 seen the original edition of this book, but have examined the reprint of 

 1849 and the edition of 1863, both of which are practically identical. 



X J. E. Gray in Grey's Journ. Two Exped. North-west and West 

 Australia, App. JI. 1841, p. 401. 



