366 



The Living Animals of the World 



[Croi/dod 



Photo hg W. SavUlc-Kcit, F.Z.S.] 



SPOTTED CUSCUS. 



The cuscnses arc sleepy animals, with soft, woolly fur, which in this 



species is curiously variegated in colour. 



specimen of the kind I had seen ; and after an 

 hour's liard work I handed over the body to the 

 owners, wlio immediately cut it up and roasted 

 it for su[)per." 



Tlie remarkable tenacity of life possessed by 

 the CUSCUS is fully attested to by Dr. Wallace. 

 He says : " Thev move aliout slowly, and are most 

 ditificult to kill, owing to the thickness of their 

 skins and tenacity of life. A heavy charge of shot 

 will often lodge in the skin and do them no 

 harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing the 

 brain will not kill them for some hours. The 

 natives everywhere eat their flesh ; and as their 

 motions are so slow, easily catch them by climbing; 

 so that it is wonderful that they have not been 

 exterminated. It may be, however, that their dense 

 woolly fur protects them from birds of prey, and 

 the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited 

 for man to be able to exterminate them." 



One of the most notable circumstances re- 

 specting the CUSCUS is the fact that it is one of 

 the few marsupials whose geographical distribution 

 extends so far east in the Malay Archipelago as 

 to be found associated with many of the higher 

 mammalia which are altogether unrepresented in 

 Australia or New Guinea. The Moluccas, includ- 

 ing notably the islands of Silolo, Ceram, Born, and many smaller ones, for example, produce 

 no less than three species of cuscus, and are also the liome of a species of liaboon, a civet- 

 cat, a deer, and that remarkable pig the babirusa. One other marsupial, a little fiying- 

 phalanger, is likewise a denizen of these islands. It has been suggested by Dr. Wallace that 

 none of the foregoing higher mammals are possibly indigenous to the ^Moluccas. The baboon, 

 he remarks, is only found in the island of Batchian, and seems to be much out of place 

 there. It probably originated from some individuals which escaped from confinement, these 

 and similar animals being often kept as pets by the ^Malay inliabitants and carried about in 

 their praus. The civet-cat, which is more common in the Philii)[]ines and throughout the 

 Indo-Malay region, is also carried about in cages from one island to another, and not infrequently 

 liberated after the civet has been abstracted from them. The deer, which is likewise tamed 

 and petted, its flesli also lieing nuich esteemed for food, might very naturally have been 

 brought by the ^Malays from Java with the ex})ress object of its acclimatisation. The babirusa, 

 whose headquarters are in the island of Celel^es, is only found in Boru, its nearest neighbour 

 in the INIoluccan group. Dr. Wallace anticipates that these two islands were in former times 

 more closely connected by land, and that under such conditions the babirusa may have swum 

 across the intervening channel. Should these several hypotheses be correct, the JMolticca 

 Islands must be regarded, from a zoological standpoint, as an essentially Australasian or 

 marsupial-[)roducing region. 



The Womhats. 



The Wombat Family, claiming tlie next position in the marsupial galaxy, constitutes the 

 very antithesis to the light and graceful arboreal plialangers. There are but three known species, 

 one of these inhabiting Tasmania and the adjacent islands, while the other two are peculiar 

 to the southern region of the Australian Continent. In forms and gait their thick-set tailless 

 bodies suggest a cross between a small bear and a capybara, and as •' bears "' and " badgers " 



