NOTES AND QUERIES, 



393 



he received a very fine one, which I saw ; so that the keeper's information 

 was probably correct.— 0. V. Aplin (Bloxham, Banbury, Oxon). 



The Australian Mole-like Marsupial, Notoryctes typhlops— Prof. 

 E. C. Stirling, of the University of Adelaide, has most kindly sent to the 

 Zoological Society an original water-coloured drawing of the newly-discovered 

 Australian marsupial, prepared from a pencil sketch taken from life. The 

 animal is represented upon the surface of one of the red sand-hills in which 

 it passes the greater part of its life, among some tussocks of Triodia irritans, 

 the " porcupine grass " of the interior of Australia, and is figured of the 

 natural size. The drawing will be exhibited at the first meeting of the 

 Zoological Society in November next, but in the meanwhile can be inspected 

 in the library by any naturalist who may wish to see it. Prof. Stirling has 

 also sent a copy of his paper in the 'Transactions' of the Royal Society 

 of South Australia (read Feb. 3rd of the present year), in which this extra- 

 ordinary animal is fully described. The subjoined particulars as to its 

 habits, extracted from Dr. Stirling's article, will be interesting to 

 readers : — "It appears that the first specimen was captured by 

 Mr. Wm. Coulthard, manager of the Frew River Station and other 

 northern runs belonging to the Willowie Pastoral Company. Attracted by 

 some peculiar tracks, on reaching his camp one evening on the Finke 

 River, whilst traversing the Idracoura Station with cattle, he followed 

 them up, and found the animal lying under a tussock of spinifex or 

 porcupine grass. Though he is an old bush hand, with all the watchful 

 alertness and powers of observation usually acquired by those who spend lives 

 of difficulty and danger, this was the first and only specimen of the animal 

 he ever saw. As previously stated, this found its way to the Museum 

 through the agency of Messrs. Benham and Molineux. The three sub- 

 sequently received shortly afterwards, as well as the last lot recently secured 

 by Mr. Bishop during our journey through the country, were also found on 

 the Idracoura Station. This is a large cattle-run comprising several 

 hundred square miles of country in the southern part of the Northern 

 Territory of South Australia, which lies immediately to the west of the 

 telegraph line between the Charlotte Waters and Alice Springs Stations. 

 The great dry water-course of the Finke River, which runs from north-west 

 to south-east, bounds the run for some eighty miles on the north and north- 

 east. Its distance from Adelaide is, roughly speaking, a thousand miles. 

 Flats and sand-hills of red sand, more or less well covered with spinifex and 

 acacias, constitute a large portion of the country, and the rainfall is incon- 

 siderable. Curiously enough, all the specimens of Notoryctes hitherto 

 received by me have been found within a circumscribed area, four miles 

 from the Idracoura Head Station, which is situated on the Finke water- 

 course itself, and almost invariably amongst the sand-hills. I have it, 

 however, on very fair authority, that the animal has been seen on the 



ZOOLOGIST. OCT. 1891. 2 I 



