Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/236

208 traveller easily to detect it in a moonlight night. Very often it will, either from curiosity, or in search of food, approach one's pack-bags in the camp, and most bushmen accuse it of eating the fat of their dried salt beef. Two young ones were once brought to me by the natives. Close to Roebuck Bay, Western Australia, a specimen was shot and preserved, but the species did not seem to be common, as this single specimen was the only one observed during five months' collecting in this locality.

This beautiful little species, which Prof. R. Collett, in the 'Proc. Zool. Soc. of London,' has described as new to science, was brought to me by the natives on the Daly river, about sixty miles from the coast. According to their evidence, it was found sleeping in holes in the ground. Undoubtedly it is nocturnal in its habits, like the other Dasyuridæ.

This occurred in the same locality as the above-mentioned species. Only one specimen came under my notice, and my native collectors brought it to me tied with a string round the hind leg. When placed on the ground it exhibited considerable agility. Presumably its habits are nocturnal.

This rare little "Rock Wallaby" was met with only in two places in Arnhem Land. Once on the Daly I shot a single specimen on an unknown mountain on the eastern side of the river, about one hundred miles from the river mouth. Subsequently I met the species in the broken granitic country around Mount Gardiner, to the west of the river Mary, and there it occurred in great numbers.

Deep in the caverns and crevices amongst the colossal granite boulders, where the rays of the sun never reach, the little wary "Bolwak" spends the day, sleeping lightly. It is easily disturbed, and will with astonishing agility flee from rock to rock. Their speed and dexterity is simply marvellous, and seeing one of these little wallabies running through the broken country, one might almost imagine it to be the shadow of a bird flying swiftly overhead.