JONES — HABITS OF TBICHOSURUS VULPECULA 
191 
by appearing abroad in full daylight and being caught by dogs, but 
from its fine condition it was evident that it had no difficulty in finding 
its way about and obtaining its food. A.s is not at all unnatural in 
an arboreal animal, the sense of smell is by no means highly developed, 
and it seems to be of but little importance in obtaining food or in 
avoiding enemies. The human scent appears to be in no way objec- 
tionable to the Australian opossum. It is astonishing how long 
it will take a captive animal to discover food placed in its cage when 
it is so situated as not to come into immediate contact with it. There 
is no doubt that captive animals can recognise the individual who 
habitually attends to them, but beyond that there is no advance in 
what may be termed the education of captivity. 
The breeding season is in June. I have not been able to gather 
one scrap of evidence that the animal breeds twice in the year, though 
it is commonly asserted to do so. The animals begin to breed in the 
year following that in which they are born. The advent of the breed- 
ing season is marked by a conspicuous increase in the size of the testes 
in the male. So far, I have observed neither copulation nor birth, 
but a series of notes upon the reproduction of a pair in captivity may 
be of interest. 
An old male, and a female of the previous year, were put together in 
May, The female was considerably smaller than the male, and for 
a month he bullied her rather badly. In June they were on better 
terms; but towards the end of the month the female became very savage 
with the male, and would not permit him to come near her. On June 
23 the female was noticed licking her pouch, the opening of which she 
dilated with her hands. On June 25 she was seen to stretch the pouch 
open with her hands, and thrust her nose into the opening. This 
process was watched repeatedly; she would not permit me, however, to 
examine the pouch. Within a few days the quarrelling became so 
constant, and the attentions to the pouch so frequent, that on July 
3 the male was removed from the cage. On July 17 I left Adelaide, 
and up to that time I was unable to examine the pouch or even to see 
into it while she opened it to lick it or thrust in her nose. On September 
17 I returned. The female was walking with a distinctly waddling 
gait, and the pouch was obviously enlarged. She now permitted me 
to feel the exterior of the pouch, and the contained embryo w^as dis- 
tinctly palpable. I could however get no view of it since the animal 
has voluntary control over the musculature of the pouch, and she 
contracted the mouth whenever I examined it. 
