200 
PJIASCOLARCTDS CINKREUS. 
rust colour : cars densely clothed with long hairs ; white on 
the inner side, and greyish on the outer, but blackish on the 
anterior margin : feet whitish. 
Inhabits New South Wales.—Specimen in the British Museum. 
An excellent account of the habits of the Koala, or Native 
Bear, as it is frequently called by the colonists, appeared as 
early as 1808, in the “ Philosophical Transactions 1 * * 4 ," from the 
pen of Colonel Patterson, formerly Governor of New South 
Wales. 
I am informed by Mr. Gould that the Koala inha¬ 
bits the range of country extending nearly from More ton 
Bay to Port Phillip. It was known to Colonel Patterson as 
an inhabitant of the forests, about fifty or sixty miles to the 
south-west of Port Jackson, whence, it is stated, the first 
specimen was brought to that port 1 . “ The New Hollanders," 
Colonel Patterson observes, “ eat the flesh of this animal, and 
therefore readily join in the pursuit of it: they examine, with 
wonderful rapidity and minuteness, the brandies of the 
loftiest gum-trees, and, upon discovering a Koala, they climb 
the tree in which it is seen with as much ease and expedition 
as an European would mount a tolerably high ladder. 
Having reached the branches, which are sometimes 40 or 50 
feet from the ground, they follow the animal to the extremity 
of a hough, and cither kill it with the tomahawk, or take it 
alive. The Koala feeds upon the tender shoots of the blue 
gum-tree, beiug more particularly fond of this tlmn of any 
other food : it rests during the day on the tops of these trees, 
1 This account will be found in a memoir communicated by Sir EYerard 
Home to the Royal Society, entitled, “ An Account of some Peculiarities of 
the Anatomical Structure of the Wombat," Ac., in which the author, unfor¬ 
tunately, confounds the Koala with the Wombat, being misled by the name 
4 ‘ Wombat, M which, it appears, is sometimes upplied by the natives to the Koala 
as well as to the Wombat. Sec Phil. Trans, for 1808, p. 304. 
