NOTES ON RECORDS OF TREE KANGAROOS IN QUEENSLAND 



By T. HARVEY JOHNSTON, M.A., D.Sc, and C. D. GILLIES, M.Sc, University of 



Queensland, Brisbane. 



Throit.h the long isolation <>i the Australian or Notogacic zoo-geographical region, its marsupial fauna 

 has undergone great specialisation, resulting in some strange adaptations. Prominent among these 

 .in- the Tree-kangaroos of the genus D which includes five species. 01 these three arc 



confined to New Guinea ami two, /'. lumholtzi, Collett. and aniis, I le Vis, occur in Queensland. 



The first Queensland species to be actually described was U. lumholtzi, an account of which was 

 given by Collett in 1884, based on material collected near Herbert Vale, North Queensland, by Dr. 



Lumholtz. The latter gave an account of the habits of this interesting animal in a paper published 

 soon after that by Collett. These have generally been regarded as being the first notices of the 

 presence of Tree-kangaroos in Australia. Quite recently, however, Mr. F. W. S. Cumbrae-Stewart, 

 the Registrar "i the University of Queensland and President of the Queensland Historical Society, 

 brought under our notice a much earlier reference to the animal in a report of the Hann Expedition 

 to the York Peninsula in 1872. He has also been kind enough to collect further information from 

 Dr. Thomas Tate, a surviving member of the party, and has placed at our disposal extracts which that 

 gentleman made from his original diary. We take this oportunity of expressing our appreciation 

 of the kindness of Mr. Cumbrae-Stewart. 



Extract from Queensland Votes and Proceedings for 1873, Relating to Mr. Hann's 

 Report of His Expedition in 1872. 



" Saturday. \2tl1 October, (1872). — And here I may as well mention what Jerry 



told me about an animal found in these scrubs, as related to him by the Cardwell blacks. He says that 

 it is a kangaroo or something like it. and climbs trees, and he was fortunate enough to see one on a day 

 when we were camped among scrubs, in which he was hunting for the eggs of the scrub turkey. 

 According to his statement, he at first took it for a ' miall ' blackfellow, but found it to be an animal ; 

 it ran up a tree and disappeared. He has not seen monkeys, but says that it is not a monkey, neither is it 

 a bear ; yet. like the first, it chatters, and, unlike the latter, it is very agile in its movements, as it 

 climbs or swings itself among the branches when disappearing. I went the next day to the scrub 

 with Dr. Tate and Jerry, thinking to see one, but was not fortunate enough in doing so ; then Jerry 

 took us to the very tree where he had seen the animal, on the bark of which were two deep scratches, 

 but no other marks by which an animal could assist itself to climb ; the marks were totally different 

 from those of an opossum, which leaves marks as if made with a pin's point, being very fine, and 

 I question whether a bear leaves any marks ; those in question appeared to have been made with toes 

 on the hind feet, but no animal could run up a smooth, straight surface with only its hind feet, without 

 receiving assistance from the forearm, which in this case had left no marks ; we saw similar marks 

 on numerous trees, so I imagine the animal to be plentiful. To entertain the idea that any kangaroo 

 known to us, or approaching its formation, could climb a tree, would be ridiculous ; the animal was 

 not formed for such work, but that there is an animal in these scrubs not known to us, I believe, because 

 I have never found my blackboy to err in his statements or reports ; and, moreover, he spoke to 

 me about this animal many months previous, when going overland to Melbourne with sheep. Some 



