86 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



KING ISLAND. 



To the Editor of the Victorian Naturalist. 



SrR, — Reading iti your journal the interesting account of the 

 exploration of King Island by the Victorian Naturalists' Club, I 

 have wondered whether it could not be utilised as a zoological 

 reserve for the famous Tasmanian hyena and Ursine dasyure 

 {native devil). These animals, the most remarkable living 

 carnivorous representatives of an ancient race, are found in no 

 other place in the world except the fastnesses of our sister island 

 and colony, Tasmania, and will in time go the way of all wild 

 beast flesh, before the advancing tide of civilisation. 



In the beginning of 1867 I was six weeks collecting plants in 

 the Ringarooma district of north-east Tasmania. I heard much 

 of these animals, and bore away skulls, which are at present in 

 my cabinet, The skull of the hyena ( Thylacimis ) far exceeds in 

 beauty and complexity that of the dog, and in size equals the 

 deerhound. I was on settlements in mountainous districts, 

 where I was told they had completely cleared off large flocks 

 (some hundreds) of sheep. 



King Island is, no doubt, a bit severed from Tasmania, but 

 entirely resembles it in fauna and flora. In it the animals 

 would live on the wallabies, and as a poisonous plant prevents 

 the stocking of the island with sheep and cattle, they could not 

 do much harm. 



But it may be said, granting thf^y do no harm, why preserve 

 them } They would be mteresting objects to show our visitors 

 in return for so much that they can and do show us when we 

 go "home" to Europe, America, or India. We cannot show 

 much yet in the way of art — or, when I think of the estimable 

 efforts of our Melbourne young ladies, I will say, at least, not of 

 ancient art ; but we have unique wonders of nature. Some 

 have already, and even recently, passed away from New Zealand, 

 which is our Alps and Iceland combined. We have lost the 

 moa, an ostrich seventeen feet high, which could have given a 

 long start to an express railway train, as Mr. Kingston has so 

 humorously pictured for us. 



'Our own great diprotodon is dead. Notice his head in the 

 University Museum ; three feet long, with lower incisor teeth 

 six inches long. Had we to choose shoulders for this gigantic 

 fellow, it is to the elephant we should have to go among living 

 animals ; and he was common here. At a glance you see his 

 relationship to kangaroo and opossum. Well, almost alone in 

 the earth, we possess living representatives of this wonderful 

 order, the vanguard of the mammal race. Nowhere are there 

 such laro-e carnivorous members as those in Tasmania. 



