Journal of Mammalogy 
Published Quarterly by the American Society of Mammalogists 
VoL. 2 NOVEMBER, 1921 No. 4 
ON THE HABITS O^ TRICHOSURUS VULPECULA 
By Frederic Wood Jones 
[Plate 13] 
There are but few Australian marsupials to which the term con) m on 
or abundant can properly be applied today. It is difiiciilt for any 
mammalogist, who has only a text book kno'wledge of the Australian 
marsupial fauna, to realize how rapidly are the closing scenes of exicr- 
mination being enacted. More certainl^?^, more’ swiftly, and withal 
more silently are the indigenous mammals of Australia passing into the 
category of the extinct, than are the inhabitants of any of the other 
large land masses of the globe. Large, conspicuous, and comm.ercially 
valuable mammals are in some danger of extermination every wdierc. 
But Australia holds this distinction; she is losing all her mammalian 
fauna from the largest and most conspicuous to the smallest and the 
most obscure. 
There are several factors which combine to effect this wholesale 
destruction. First, the introduced carnivores, the fox and the cat, 
can outwit and destroy the native fauna wLerever they come into con- 
tact. Second, the rabbit, the sheep and the cattle have raised the 
standard of competition for vegetable food to such a pitch that the 
herbivorous marsupials cannot survive in- the struggle for existence. 
Third, such arboreal forms as are phytophagous, and are not subjected 
to this competition, are mostly valuable fur bearing animals, and it 
must be remembered that the fur trade of Australia is wholly destruc- 
tive. The remaining factor is one due to geographical conform.ation 
and climate. In Asia, in Africa, in America and in Europe extermina- 
tion of mammalian faunas is comiparatively slov^, since there are places 
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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY, VOL. 2 , NO. 4 
