1801.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE GENUS CUSCUS. 3 1 .5 



in the volume for 18G0, ]). 1, I described another species of the 

 genus. 



Since that time we have received several other specimens from 

 Mr. Wallace, and I have also been able to examine several other 

 examples sent home by the same excellent collector ; and the exa- 

 mination of these specimens has induced me rather to modify my 

 view's as regards the species, and has enabled me to observe other 

 characters for the species which were before unknown to me. 



I therefore lay before the Society these additional observations, in 

 the hope of doing something towards settling the species of this 

 very difficult group of animals, which are curious as being the only 

 Marsupials that have as yet been submitted to a kind of domesti- 

 cation ; though I have never been able to see why Kangaroos might 

 not have been domesticated by the Australian emigrant, except from 

 the difficulty of making them adopt new ways even in a new country. 



I may observe that 1 believe the British Museum contains the 

 largest and finest collection of the specimens of this genus that has 

 been ever brought together. A few years ago we considered our- 

 selves fortunate in having two specimens ; now we have thirty-three 

 from very different localities, and I have besides these examined about 

 half as many more. 



The zoologists of the modern school are very desirous that the 

 name of the original namer of the species should always be inserted 

 after the specific name, to show to whom belongs the honour of 

 having first named the species, — often a very doubtful source of con- 

 gratulation or proof of scientific attainment, as for example in this 

 genus. 



Should the various varieties of colour really be proved to be good 

 species in this genus, we shall have to adopt the names of Lesson, an 

 author who seems only to have seen a very few specimens, and to 

 have given a name to each of those that he saw, without giving him- 

 self the trouble to discover what were the characters that separated 

 them from the other examples of the genus ; and it is often the 

 case, not only with species but with genera, that the man who first 

 gives the name to either one or the other often knows less about 

 them, and takes less trouble to study the subject, than men who 

 have never given a new name to either genus or species. This was 

 specially the case with Swainson, who has given the names to many 

 genera of shells and birds even on the slightest characters, and with- 

 out the least analysis. 



In the former paper I divided the Cusci into two sections, ac- 

 cording to the hairyness and prominence of the ears ; I will now 

 divide them into four sections, according to the form of the skull and 

 the number and disposition of the anterior false grinders, and thus 

 place at the disposal of the student two means of determining the 

 species. 



Sect. I. The nose of the skull short, broad, and rounded. The an- 

 terior conical false grinders one on each side, large, and nearly filling 

 up the short diastema. The grinders large, in an arched series, con- 



