S3 



and yet unhurried little forms that run from one tuft of vegetation to another 

 make the whole island appear alive with small animals. Some are Leporillus 

 jonesi and some are bandicoots, and it is difficult at twilight to distinguish the 

 one from the other. The main difference between the two animals from the 

 point of view of behaviour is that the bandicoots seem to be almost fearless, 

 v/hilst the rats are extremely shy. On several occasions bandicoots came boldly 

 to the hands of members of the party who offered them such delicacies as bread 

 and jam, and throughout the night they ran freely about the camp regardless of 

 its human occupants. Although they appear to live on terms of perfect goodwill 

 v/ith the Leporillus, they are, like all bandicoots, excessively pugnacious among 

 themselves ; and most of those seen or caught had ragged ears, and incomplete 

 tails, the results, most probably, of internecine fights. Only two examples were 

 met with in which the tail tapered to its undoubted original tip. They fight 

 desperately when placed together in a cage ; but one put into the enclosure 

 occupied by an Isoodon obesuliis was killed by the heavier mainland animal 

 before it could be rescued. 



For the most part they live in the thick tangles which the strands of 

 Tetragonia iniplexicoma make around low vegetation; but on several occasions 



Fig. 1. 

 Left ear of a male adult specimen of Isoodon nauticus. Twice natural size. 



they w^ere noticed to retreat into the holes of mutton birds. They also live all 

 over the plateau of the island in the thick clumps of vegetation of which 

 Nitraria schoeberi is the main constituent. None were trapped, but some were 

 seen on the eastern island, and there can be little doubt that it is just as abundant 

 there as it is upon the island upon which the 1922 camp was made. Like all the 

 bandicoots, it is omnivorous. No pregnant females or very young specimens 

 were captured, and it is probable that the breeding season is at the same time 

 of the year (June) as that of its mainland relatives. The males appeared to 

 vastly outnumber the females, and in January the genital glands are in a 

 quiescent phase. The Franklin Island bandicoot is small, lightly built, and 

 somewhat pale. Specimens obtained in January, 1922, were sent to Mr. Old- 

 field Thomas, and were described by him as a new species, Isoodon nauticus 

 (Ann. and Mag., Nat. Hist., Ser. 9, vol. ix., June, 1922, p. 677). The following 

 is the description of the type specimen: — "Size markedly smaller than in the 

 continental obesulus, the skull of an adult male only about 55 mm. in length, 

 as compared with 70 or more in obesulus. General colour comparatively pale; 



