CUSCUSES 



2 33 



and stupid during the day, and only become lively at night, when they issue forth 

 to feed, and even then they are generally slow and deliberate in their movements. 

 Dwellers in the forests amid lofty trees, they spring from bough to bough like 

 squirrels, or swing, after the manner of South American spider-monkeys, by their 

 tails from one bough till 

 they are enabled to reach 

 the next with their fore- 

 feet. They feed on leaves 

 and fruits as well as on 

 birds and other small ani- 

 mals, and are really the 

 most carnivorous of their 

 tribe. Although nowhere 

 very common, they are 

 frequently caught for the 

 sake of their flesh ; the 

 natives climbing the trees 

 in which they live and 

 seizing them without diffi- 

 culty on account of the 

 slowness of their move- 

 ments. They are, however, 

 by no means easy to kill; 

 and even severe wounds 

 in the brain or spine will 

 only cause their death after 

 the lapse of some hours. 

 Owing to the thickness of 

 their coats, a heavy charge 

 of shot merely lodges in 

 the skin without doing 

 serious harm. This density 

 of coat likewise acts as an 

 efficient protection against 

 the attacks of birds-of- 

 prey. The spotted cuscus 

 (Phalanger, or Cuscus, 

 maculatus) is remarkable 

 for exhibiting a sexual 

 variation in colour almost 

 unparalleled among mammals, the males having the fur dirty white in ground- 

 colour with blotches of rufous, while the females, which exceed their partners in 

 size, are in most cases uniformly grey or blackish. These cuscuses are natives of 

 Cape York Peninsula, New Guinea, and some of the neighbouring islands, the other 

 members of the group inhabiting the islands of the Austro-Malay Archipelago 

 as far west as Celebes. 



SPOTTED COSCUS. 



