Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/439

Rh "I have seen a good deal of this beautiful little animal. It appears very much like a squirrel when running on the ground, which it does in successive leaps, with its tail a little elevated, every now and then raising its body, and resting on its hind-feet. When alarmed, it generally takes to a dead tree lying on the ground, and before entering



the hollow invariably raises itself on its hind-feet, to ascertain the reality of approaching danger. In this kind of retreat it is easily captured, and when caught is so harmless and tame as scarcely to make any resistance, and never attempts to bite. When it has no chance of escaping from its place of refuge, it utters a sort of half-smothered grunt, apparently produced by a succession of hard breathings."



The other member of the family Dasyuridæ, to which I call the reader's attention, is a very different animal from the Myrmecobius. I refer to the largest of the predatory members of the kangaroo's order; namely, to the Tasmanian wolf. It is about the size of the animal after which it is named, and it is marked across the loins with tiger-like, black bands (Fig. 16). It is only found in the island of Tasmania, and will probably very soon become altogether extinct, on account of its destructiveness to the sheep of the colonists. Its teeth have considerable resemblance to those of the dog, and it differs from