of Australian Mammalia. 



41 



has shown during her voyage to and from Australia a great 

 taste for, and paid great attention to, natural history. 



Ch^eropus, Ogilby. Didelphida, Sect. Peramelina. 

 Nose elongate, tapering, slender ; muzzle bald, callous ; whiskers 

 rigid; eyes moderate; ears large, slightly • hairy, thin. Cutting 

 teeth , close, nearly uniform ; upper conical, lower truncated, 

 hinder one notched externally. Canines j£p conical; compressed, 

 upper simple, far from the cutting ; lower with a notch in the front 

 edge and near to the hinder cutting teeth. False grinders-|f| , upper 

 front compressed like the canines ; two others three-lobed, broader, 

 the last approaching the grinders inform; the lower compressed, three- 

 lobed. Grinders -jEj, each formed of two triangles united by their 

 wider outer edge of the upper broader ; and the inner edge of the 

 higher narrower lobes of the lower teeth, the end of the broad side of 

 the triangle are two-lobed. Legs and feet very slender, weak ; the 

 front feet elongate, with two equal toes, each armed with a conical 

 claw ; the bone on which the claw is supported is bifid at the top ; the 

 sole of the feet callous and convex ; the hind-feet elongate, with four 

 toes ; the sole compressed ; heels hairy ; the outer toes very small, 

 armed with a nearly sessile conical claw, placed nearly in the middle 

 of the outer side between the heel and the end of the toe ; middle 

 toe very large, elongate, armed with a tapering compressed claw, 

 and with a large callous pad beneath ; the two inner toes equal, 

 small, compressed, united together nearly to the claws placed be- 

 fore the outer toes a little before the joint of the first joint of the 

 middle toes, which has a rounded pad beneath it ; the claws of these 

 toes are compressed, concave beneath and sharp-edged. Tail elon- 

 gate, hairy, with a small terminal pencil. 



This genus is at once known from Perameles, to which, in 

 other respects, it is very nearly allied by the conformation of 

 its feet. The genus was established by Mr. Ogilby in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society, 1828, on a drawing brought 

 home by Sir T. L. Mitchell, who had left the animal at the 

 Sidney Museum. A copy of this drawing is published in Mit- 

 chell's 6 Eastern Australia/ vol. ii. 131. t. 27. 



Sir Thomas Mitchell's specimen was without any tail ; hence 

 Mr. Ogilby named it Chceropus ecaudatus ; but 1 strongly sus- 

 pect, when the animal is rediscovered, it will be found to have 

 a tail, like the one here described ; for the tail appears, as in Pe- 

 rameles, to be easily destroyed in skinning, as in the specimen 

 under examination the tail is only attached to the skin by a 

 very narrow piece. 



There are no smaller toes behind the two large front ones, 

 which Mr. Ogilby (Ann. Nat. Hist., vii. 231) considers pro- 

 bable to exist ; and the hind-feet, as may be seen by the de- 



