NOTES ON A COLLECTION OF LIVING MAMMALS. 187 



are often spiteful and will bite severely, though capable of 

 becoming fairly tame after a time. Young individuals, when 

 tame, make delightful pets, as full of play as a kitten, and making 

 most astonishing bounds from place to place, hardly to be ex- 

 pected of so heavy-looking an animal. The Vulpine Phalanger 

 can run well, though rather clumsily ; but it is most at home if 

 given a tree-trunk to climb about on, the tenacious grasp of the 

 claws being often assisted by the prehensile tail, which has a 

 bare area on its lower surface to afford a firmer hold of the 

 branches ; so strongly do the caudal tendons act, that even a 

 dead Phalanger may be suspended securely by hooking the tail 

 round one's finger. 



Tame individuals may be allowed to climb about the person 

 of their owner like a Kinkajou or Bassaris. When fairly awake 

 for the evening they are quite agile in their movements, hanging 

 from a branch suspended merely by the tail, creeping along the 

 under surface of a bough almost like a Sloth, and occasionally 

 twisting themselves round so as to seat themselves on the upper 

 surface of their perch, when they will sit up on their haunches 

 like a Kangaroo ; indeed, in this latter attitude they much 

 resemble a small Wallaby. Phalangers may be fed on bread, 

 apples, lettuce, and carrots. One of my specimens would eat 

 birdseed, and even dried Ants' eggs. They cannot stand much 

 damp, and a foggy winter must be guarded against by artificial 

 heat. 



The above list of mammals, though not a very large one, 

 indicates sufficiently what may be done by any private individual 

 attempting the study of living mammals (without the abundant 

 resources of wealthy zoological societies), and only adopting 

 commonsense treatment of the animals. It may be added that 

 foreign Mammalia do not require to be kept day and night in a 

 hot-house temperature, but are much better if not coddled. Dry 

 cold will not do the majority of them much harm, but draughts, 

 damp, and fog must be carefully avoided. The most convenient 

 way of keeping them is to have the collection in a snugly built 

 outhouse, lighted from the top to economise wall space ; and 

 during the past winter I have found that a building fourteen feet 

 long, twelve feet wide, and ten feet high can be kept comfortably 



