OSPHRANTER ROBUSTUS, Gould. 
Black Wallaroo, 
Macropus (^Petrogale) rohustus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., part viii. p. 92. 
Osphranter robustus, Gould, Mon. of Macrop., pi. . —Gray, List of Mamm. in Coll. Brit. Mus., p. 91. 
Macropus robust, us, Waterti. in Jard. Nat. Lib. Marsupialia, p. 241. 
Macropus (^Halmaturus) robustus, Waterh. Nat. Hist, of Mamm., vol. i. p. 100. 
Black Wallaroo of the Colonists. 
Since my return from Australia in 1840, I have in vain requested my numerous friends and correspondents 
to procure and transmit examples of this large and truly fine animal. I believe I was the first scientific 
man who visited the locality in which it dwells, as well as the first who made it known to science ; and I 
may ask, is it not surprising that during the interval of fifteen years which has elapsed since the account of 
this species was published in my “ Monograph of the Kangaroos,” no examples besides those I myself 
brought home should have been procured, and that no attempts to secure living examples of so conspicuous 
an animal should have been attempted ? Indeed, were it not for my visit to its native haunts, it might have 
remained unknown to us even to the present time. This is the more to be wondered at, since the animal is 
found within the colony of New South Wales. Surely the exterminating hand of civilized man, so fatal to 
the animal productions of a new country, cannot have dealt out destruction so unsparingly as to have 
destroyed the entire race. 
The following account of this species appeared in my Monograph of the group, and I regret that I have 
nothing to add to it. 
The Black Wallaroo inhabits the summits of sterile and rocky mountains, seldom descending to the 
coverts of their sides, and never to their base ; few, therefore, have had an opportunity of observing it in a 
state of nature ; Indeed there are thousands of persons in Australia who are not even aware of its existence. 
Although the south-eastern portion of the continent is, I believe, the only part of the country in which it has 
yet been observed, in all probability it has an extensive range northwards. It is tolerably abundant on the 
Liverpool Range, and I ascertained that it inhabited many of those hills that branch off on either side of this 
great mountain-chain, towards the interior as well as towards the coast. Its retreats are so well chosen 
among the crags and overhanging ledges of rocks, that it is nearly useless to attempt its capture with dogs. 
It is a formidable and even dangerous animal to approach, for if so closely pressed that it has no other 
chance of escape, it will rush at and force the invader over the edge of the rocks, as the Ibex is said to do 
under similar eircumstances. Independently of its great muscular power, this animal is rendered still more 
formidable by the manner in which it makes use of its teeth, biting its antagonist with great severity. 
The Black Wallaroo may be regarded as a gregarious animal, four, six, and even more being frequently 
seen in company. On one of the mountains near Turi, to the eastward of the Liverpool Plains, it was very 
numerous ; and from the nature of this and the other localities in whieh I observed it, it must possess the 
power of existing for long periods without water, that element being rarely to be met with in sueh situations. 
The summits of the hills to whieh this species resorts soon become interseeted by numerous roads and 
well-trodden tracks, caused by its repeatedly traversing from one part to the other ; its food consists of 
grasses and the shoots and leaves of the low scrubby trees which clothe the hills it frequents. 
Although much shorter in stature, and consequently less elegant in form, the fully adult male of this 
species equals in weight the largest speeimens of Macropus major ; and so remarkable is the difference in the 
colour and size of the sexes, that, had I not seen them together in a state of nature, I should have considered 
them to be different species, the black and powerful male offering so great a contrast to the small and 
delieate female. 
The male has the fur harsh and somewhat shaggy ; general colour slate-grey, obseurely washed with 
brownish, and tinted with vinous on the outer sides of the thighs ; feet dark brown, gradually passing into 
black on the fore part ; upper part of the arm brownish ; hands and wrists black ; inner surface of the ear 
white, the exterior brown ; muzzle and a pateh on the ehin blackish ; a line round the angle of the mouth 
