6956 Quadrupeds. 



dark, but he told me it was more like that of a rabbit ; I am sorry that 

 I neglected to ask him to examine the contents of the stomach whilst 

 he was skinning the specimen. 



Postscript. — Soon after my return home from Scotland, the owner 

 of this animal, hearing of his capture, wrote (October 1st) to me the 

 following particulars respecting him. 



He had been brought from Australia not many months before ; he 

 had escaped from his new home in a house at Aycliffe, distant about 

 seven miles west from the place where he was killed, after wandering 

 for fourteen days. He was caught by a shepherd in Australia, when 

 a very few (perhaps four) weeks old, and was considered to be about 

 seventeen months old. The letter ends — " Your conjecture respecting 

 the name is quite correct, as it is a specimen of the brush-tailed 

 opossum." 



Having lately visited the British Museum, I found that the Phalan- 

 gista vulpina, of which there are many stuffed specimens in the 

 Mammalia Saloon, is a slighter, more elegant and delicate animal, 

 with smaller limbs and a finer fur; and in its head more like a small 

 fox, though much of the same colour as mine, and that the Case 55 

 contains two or three gray examples of the Phalangista fnliginosa, 

 which much more resemble ray specimen. 1 have therefore no doubt 

 that this animal is a young male of the sooty y)halangista in its second 

 year of coating, and before it had attained to its specific dark, or 

 brown-black colour. The fur is rougher and coarser, and the animal 

 is stouter and larger in some of its dimensions, and is altogether less 

 interesting than P. vulpina. 



I have also just seen three living specimens in the Zoological 

 Gardens of the fox-like and one of the sooty phalangista — this last 

 in his black fur, and they quite confirm my opinion. They appeared 

 gentle and quiet creatures, and were feeding on cabbage, carrots and 

 soaked bread ; they gnawed off" largish pieces of these substances, 

 and, holding them in their fore-feet, were leisurely eating them after 

 the manner of squirrels. They had good beds of straw in their cages, 

 and the keeper told me they must be kept warm in the winter. 



Mr. Waterhouse, in his ' Natural History of Mammalia,' vol. i., 

 p. 291, gives the length of P. fuliginosa, as 22 inches from the nose 

 to the base of the tail, and of the tail 14 inches = -36 inches in all; 

 and of another, as 18 inches 6 lines, and 12 inches, or 30 inches 

 6 lines altogether ; and this last, he says, was a light gray, and 

 entirely corresponded in colour with P. vulpina. He further men- 



