158 



ants as food, but they ate none. They did, however, eat one 

 *' witch ety," the native name of large white grul)s, much 

 relished by the blacks as an article of food, which are the larval 

 forms of certain Longicorn beetles and Lepidoptera, and Mr. 

 Benham informed me that one of his ate a piece of bread on one 

 occasion, but it only lived a day. They thus appear to stand 

 captivity extremely badly. On being handled they make no 

 attempt to bite. No blackfellow that I questioned had ever seen 

 the young, nor did they know anything whatever of any nests or 

 breeding places used by them. Their native name is "oor-quamata," 

 the terminal "r" of the first syllable being much rolled so as almost 

 to convey the sound of an interpolated short "i" between the "r" 

 and the "5'"; the accentuated syllable is strongly marked, the 

 vowels having the same value as in " quarrel." Mr. Benham 

 stated that the natives have a superstitious dread of them, and 

 applied to one the term "kudoicka," which they translate as 

 " devil-devil " ; but I could not get this confirmed by any of the 

 blacks I saw. In fact the natives seem to know very little about 

 them and could give me no information w^hatever as to what their 

 food was or whether they got it under or above ground. With the 

 material at my disposal I should be able definitely to settle this 

 point, and indeed, in one of my first specimens, I did most 

 certainly find the remains of ants and some other insect debris 

 in what remained of the intestines ; but as the Editor of these 

 Transactions urgently calls for the completion of this paper, I am 

 reluctantly obliged to postpone to a future issue the result of 

 further investigation on this and other points. 



GENERAL DESCRIPTION.* 



(PI. II., III., and IV^.) 



The fur, in the three specimens (all males) in which it was 

 sufficiently well preserved for accurate description, may be 

 described as being generally of a light fawn colour, long, soft and 

 of a bright lustrous and silken appearance. In parts it deepens 

 to a glistening golden hue, and in others it inclines more to a 

 silvery aspect. In the last specimen received, which was in a much 

 better state of preservation than any of its predecessors, the fur 

 was considerably lighter than in the others, and the silvery tint 

 more pronounced. The colours of all these have faded considerably 



* It will be remembered that the following description is based upon an 

 examination of the first four specimens received in 1888 and 1889. One 

 only of these had heen satisfactorily preserved in spirit ; all the others 

 were merely wrapped in rag saturated with kerosine and enclosed in small 

 tin boxes. I have, however, incorporated some additional information, 

 having reference to the pouch in the female. 



