336 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF 
THE WORLD 
os mes 
Photo by A. 8. Rudland & Sons 
POUCHED MOLE 
This animal is of a pale golden-red colour, and about 5 inches long. It spends most of its 
time burrowing, which it can do with great rapidity, in the sand of the 
Australian deserts in search of insects 
” Photo by W, Saville Kent, F.Z.S, 
UNDER SURFACE OF POUCHED 
MOLE 
Nutice the abnormal size of the third and fourth 
tozs of the fore limbs, and their peculiar 
scoop-like shape 
Thecolour of thepouched 
mole is for the most part 
light fawn, varying in parts 
to golden yellow. One of 
its most conspicuous features, 
as illustrated in the accom- 
panying photographs, is the 
abnormal size of the third 
and fourth toes of the fore 
limbs, their peculiar scoop-like 
character proving of eminent 
service to the animal in 
its customary sand-burrowing 
habits. 
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THE TASMANIAN WOLF 
The remaining family of 
the Australian marsupials 
constitutes a parallel to the 
carnivorous order of the higher 
mammalia, all its members 
being more or less flesh- 
eaters, and having their 
dentition modified with relation to such habits. One 
of these (the TASMANIAN WOLF, or TIGER of the colonists, 
better known to zoologists as the THYLACINE) is an animal 
of considerable size. Its dimensions equal those of a wolf 
or mastiff, with which the contour of its body and more 
especially that of the head very nearly correspond. In 
common with the true dogs, the thylacine hunts its 
prey by scent. This is well attested to by the following 
incident, as related by eye-witnesses. While camping out 
among the hills in Tasmania their attention was attracted 
very early one morning by a brush-kangaroo hopping past 
their fire in an evidently highly excited state. Some ten 
minutes later up cantered a she thylacine with her nose 
down exactly on the track, evidently following the scent, and 
in another quarter of an hour her two cubs came by also 
in the precise track. While not very swift, the Tasmanian 
“tigers” possess immense staying power, and will keep up 
a long, steady canter for many hours on end. Accustomed 
in its primitive state to run down and prey upon the 
kangaroos, wallabies, and other weaker marsupial mammals 
indigenous to the regions it inhabits, the Tasmanian wolf 
speedily acquired a predilection for the imported flocks of 
the settlers, and proved almost as destructive to them as 
its Old World namesake. To check its ravages, a price 
was put upon its head by the Tasmanian Government; 
and this measure, in conjunction with the rapid advances 
towards the complete settlement of the country which 
have been accomplished within later years, has compassed 
this animal’s extermination in all but the wildest and 
