SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
——— ee 
The money that has been made out of our wild animals in the past 
represents millions of pounds, chiefly from the furred skins of the 
opossum and wallaby and the hides of the kangaroo, but this trade 1s 
being rapidly lost from various causes, some of which can be rectified. 
The protection of the animals is a State responsibility, and although 
there are various Acts with that end in view, there is very inadequate. 
machinery for their administration, and the trade in furs and skins of 
protected animals is not greatly interfered with, and it is quite possible 
under the present circumstances that some species will become extinct. . 
__ At the present time, practically all the small ground marsupials are 
being killed off, firstly by settlement, and secondly by the introduced 
— = 
NATIVE CAT. (Photo. by Harry Burnell. 
fox and domestic cat. This principally refers to the rat kangaroo, | 
bandicoot, native cats, and marsupial rats (Pharscologals). ; 
There is evidence that the native bear (Koala), native cats — 
(Dasyurus), and the phascologales disappeared suddenly all over the | 
country, about 1897, from a disease; the former is now only numerous 
in parts of Queensland and in South-Eastern Victoria, the Dasyurus 
viverrinus, once so plentiful, is now only in evidence in county Cumber- 
- land, round Sydney, and the brush-tailed phascologale seems to have 
gone altogether. 
The effect of this, as far as the rat kangaroos are concerned, may 
not ‘be very great, as they were apparently herbage feeders, but the 
bandicoots are insectivorous, and live largely on the larva of certain 
beetles, which, if lacking other enemies, may unduly increase, but the 
most important phase is that, in the absence of the native cat and the 
phascologale, the mice will increase unhampered, except for the pre- 
datory birds and reptiles, and these proved rather inadequate in the 
recent visitation. 
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