144 



hos (probably Maropus eugenn, Desm.) as the first Macropod which so far is 

 known to have revealed itself to European eyes, for the recently published 

 investigations of Professor Heeres 1 show that, so long ago as 1629, Commo- 

 dore Pelsaert — whose ship, the "Batavia", was wrecked on one of the islands 

 in June of that year — had observed and noted the pouched character, and 

 the mammary foetus of the wallaby in question. He says, ''We found in 

 these islands large numbers of a species of cats, which are very strange crea- 

 tures ; they are about the size of a hare, their head resembling the head of 

 a civet-cat; the fore paws are very short, about the length of a finger, on 

 which the animal has five small nails or fingers, resembling those of a mon- 

 key's fore paw. Its two hind legs, on the contrary, are upwards of half an 

 ell in length, and it walks on these only, on the flat of the heavy part of the 

 leg, so that it does not run fast. Its tail is very long, like that of a long- 

 tailed monkey; if it eats, it sits on its hind legs, and clutches its food with 

 its fore paws, just like a squirrel or monkey. Their manner of generation 

 or procreation is exceedingly strange and highly worth observing. Below 

 the belly the female carries a pouch, into which you may put your hand; 

 inside this pouch are her nipples, and we have found that the young ones 

 grow up in this pouch with the nipples in their mouths. We have seen 

 some young ones lying there, which were only the size of a bean, though 

 at the same time perfectly proportioned, so that it seems certain that they 

 grew there out of the nipples of the mammae, from which they draw their 

 food, until they are grown up and are able to walk. Still, they keep creep- 

 ing into the pouch even when they have become very large, and the dam 

 runs off with them when they are hunted" (p. 61). The much less satisfact- 

 ory observations of "Vlaming and Dampier on West Australian wallabies, 

 belong to the last decade of the seventeenth century. 



III. Personal-Notizen. 



Mr. M. Caullery, précédemment professeur de Zoologie à la Fa- 

 culté des Sciences de Marseille, est nommé Maître de Conférences à 

 la Faculté des Sciences de Paris. — Adresser tout ce qui lui est des- 

 tiné au Laboratoire d'Evolution des Etres Organisés, 3 rue d'Ulm, 

 Paris, 5^ arr. 



1 "The Part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia, 1606 — 1765. By 

 J. E. Heeres, LL.D., Professor at the Dutch Colonial Institute, Delft." Published 

 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society in commemoration of the XXVth anni- 

 versary of its foundation. Leiden (1899). 



Druck Ton Breitkopf & Härtel In Leipzig. 



