280 DASYTJKID^. 



parent, rather more angular and less smoothly rounded than 

 - usual. 



Teeth. Upper lateral incisors flattened, subequal, i.* slightly the 

 largest. Canines proportionally very slender. P.* double-rooted, 

 rather smaller than p.' Lower incisors small, spatulate, almost 

 exactly equal in size. Canines with a tendency to a posterior basal 

 broadening. P.^ and p.' large, not touching each other ; p." quite 

 minute, single-rooted, or, very commonly, altogether absent. M.^ 

 narrowed in front, without, or with scarcely a trace of, an anterior 

 secondary cusp. 



Dimensions. 



.S- ?■ 



* (in al.). b (in al.). 



Adult. Adult. 



millim. mUlim. 



Head and body 215 190 



Tail 201 173 



Hind foot 43 39 



Ear 18 15 



Skull, see p. 299. 



Edb. N.W. New Guinea (Salawatti, Andai, Jobi I., &c.). 



Type in the Leyden Museum. 



This species is by far the most brilliantly coloured of the family, 

 if not indeed of the whole Order, and affords, with its almost equally 

 handsome allies Ph. wallacei, dorice, and dorsalis, a striking example 

 of the characteristic beautj' commonly exhibited by the coloration 

 of Papuan animals t- 



It is unfortunate that the first discovered specimen of this species 

 should have been a melanistic one, and that, therefore, the name 

 then applied to it {Ph. melas) should be untenable. A personal 

 examination of this typical specimen in the Leyden Museum proves 

 that it is incontestably specifically identical with Ph. thorheckiana, 

 of which the type is also there preserved. 



I Ad. sk. I , Sailolo, Salawatti Leyden Museum fE.!. 



*'• 1 Skull, f^- (Bernstein), 



b. Ad. al., 5 , 6/75. Salawatti (JBruijn). Genoa Museum [E.]. 



•i. Fhascologale wallacei. 



Myoictis wallacei, GVay, P. Z. S. 1858, p. 112, pi. Ixiv. (animal) and 

 woodcut of skull ; id. Ann. Mag. N. S. (3) ii. p. 223, figs. 6-8 

 (skull) (1858) ; Qerrard, Cat. Bones Mamm. B. M. p. 187 (1862). 



Phascogale wallacei, iSchleg. Ned. Tijdsehr-. Dierk. iii. p. 355 (1866) ; 



* Specimen in the Genoa Museum. In connection with this I must again 

 record my special obligations to the Marquia Oc. Doria, of that Museum, for the 

 loan of the whole of the Papuan specimens of Fhascologale there preserved, a 

 loan without which it would have been almost impossible satisfactorily to work 

 out this most difficult genus. 



t Cf. Wallace, Q-eogr. Distr. Anim. i. p. 413 (1876). 



