Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/235

Rh domesticus. It is not a very fast runner, and on horseback, in open country, is easily overtaken.

The young ones are at birth only the size of a very small pea; and their number is, compared with that of other marsupials, very great, nearly every teat of the mother carrying one.

The crippled trees of the northern forests form the nightly hunting-grounds of the species, and its food consists of insects and small vertebrates. Occasionally it goes down to water to drink. It is a nuisance in meat-stores, will greedily eat fat or tallow, and with this as a bait is easily enticed into a trap. The settlers accuse it of bloodthirstiness, and of wantonly murdering fowls or chickens like the European Weasels, qualities which in my opinion are more attributable to another representative of the Dasyuridæ, the Phascologale penicillata.

This pretty little species, commonly termed "Brush-tailed Rat" by the colonists, is one of the most widely ranging of Australian Dasyuridæ. It is found nearly all over the continent. In Arnhem Land it appeared to be most common towards the central parts. In the coast country, and around the long tidal river-mouths, I only once saw it, and the "Wombo," as the natives call it, seems to be more adapted to the dry inland scrubs than to the better watered jungles and forests of the coast. In the low broken ranges between Fountain Head and Union Town, and on the railway line, it generally occurred; and also on the rivers Mary and Katherine it was frequently observed. In fact, nearly everywhere inland it was very constant, and on a moonlight walk one would generally expect to see this little marsupial nimbly climbing about amongst the twisting branches of the box tree, or the red gum, whose hollow trunks serve it as a shelter during the daytime.

In the fowl-yards of the settlers it commits serious depredations, and at the store at Fountain Head two dozen fowls were killed in three weeks by these little bloodsuckers, who seem to possess the same devilish thirst for blood as the Weasels of Europe.

The "Wombo" is a smart and clever climber, and moves with great swiftness in a sudden jerky manner, which enables the