THE THYLACIIE 
Thylacinus cynocephalus. 
Plate XXXI. 
The Zoological Society have possessed three individuals of this extremely curious and interesting animal, the 
only specimens which have ever reached Europe alive. 
The Thylacine, the largest and most powerful of Carnivorous Marsupials, is common in the more remote 
parts of Tasmania, where it is called by the names of “Tiger” and “Hyaena” indiscriminately. It is 
principally nocturnal in its habits, but also moves about during the daytime, though upon these occasions, 
perhaps owing to its rather imperfect vision by day, its pace is said to be slow. The species is extremely 
limited in its geographical range, being entirely confined to the island, and no trace whatever of its existence 
having been yet discovered on the Continent. But its place there was filled in a former geological period by 
an animal very closely allied to it in structure, to which Professor Owen has given the name of Thylacinus 
spelceus, from fossil remains discovered in the Wellington Valley. 
The first description of the Thylacine appears in the ninth volume of the “ Transactions ” of the Linnean 
Society, from the pen of Mr. Harris, in consequence of which M. Temminck has proposed for it the name of 
Thylacinus harrisii. 
The Zoological Society are indebted to the exertions of Mr. Ronald Gunn and Dr. James Grant, of 
Launceston, for the first pair of Tliylacines, which were sent home by those gentlemen as a gift in the year 
1849. Under the skilful management of Captain Gwatkin, of the barque Stirlingshire, to whom they were 
intrusted, they arrived in perfect safety, and the female survives to the present time. In a letter addressed to 
the then Secretary of the Society, by Mr. Gunn, under the date of December 29,1849, he states as follows:— 
“ Both these animals have been caught in snares, upon the upper part of the St. Patrick’s River, about 
thirty miles N.E. of Launceston. The female, which was first caught, was placed for some time in a small 
unfinished house at the St, Patrick’s, until 1 could devise means of getting her down here, and when I sent a 
trustworthy person up for her, he assured me that she was excessively agile, springing from the floor to the 
top of the walls, six or eight feet, and from joist to joist, near the roof, with the activity of a cat. He also 
informed me that the Thylacine will not eat the Wombat, an animal exceedingly abundant on the St, Patrick’s 
River, and with which they attempted to feed it during the month it was there, previous to my having it 
brought down to my residence. 
“An observation of mine, contained in a letter to Sir W. Hooker, which was not meant for publication, 
has been misunderstood, and has led to the propagation of an error for which I am very sorry. In it I said 
the Thylacine’s tail was not compressed, in reference to an observation of Mr. Swainson’s in an Encyclopaedia 
(then recently published) that the tail of the Thylacine was compressed, which suggested the supposition that it 
was used in swimming, <fc. It was to the latter part of this observation that my remarks were particularly 
applied (vide Annals of Natural History, vol. I., p. 101), and I meant that the tail was not compressed to such 
an extent as to have justified the inference that it was useful in swimming. The tail is obviously slightly 
compressed, but not more so, I think, than the tails of the Dasyures, to which aquatic habits are not attributed. 
In writing hurriedly, and not for publication, I did not express myself with the precision I ought to have 
done. I merely wished to point out that the tail would not justify the inference of Mr. Swainson (which 
I thought very far strained), that the animal was aquatic in its habits and piscivorous.” 
While in the hands of Mr. Gunn, the Tliylacines were fed exclusively on mutton, upon which diet they 
continued to thrive during the voyage, as well as after their arrival in London. The Thylacine originally 
preyed on the Kangaroos and Bandicoots, but since the introduction of sheep into the colony, it has become 
more addicted to attack the sheep-folds. Perpetual war is therefore waged against it by the Tasmanian 
shepherds, whose determined persecution must eventually lead to its extinction. 
