Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/229

Rh are often spiteful and will bite severely, though capable of becoming fairly tame after a time. Young individuals, when tame, make delightful pets, as full of play as a kitten, and making most astonishing bounds from place to place, hardly to be expected of so heavy-looking an animal. The Vulpine Phalanger can run well, though rather clumsily; but it is most at home if given a tree-trunk to climb about on, the tenacious grasp of the claws being often assisted by the prehensile tail, which has a bare area on its lower surface to afford a firmer hold of the branches; so strongly do the caudal tendons act, that even a dead Phalanger may be suspended securely by hooking the tail round one's finger.

Tame individuals may be allowed to climb about the person of their owner like a Kinkajou or Bassaris. When fairly awake for the evening they are quite agile in their movements, hanging from a branch suspended merely by the tail, creeping along the under surface of a bough almost like a Sloth, and occasionally twisting themselves round so as to seat themselves on the upper surface of their perch, when they will sit up on their haunches like a Kangaroo; indeed, in this latter attitude they much resemble a small Wallaby. Phalangers may be fed on bread, apples, lettuce, and carrots. One of my specimens would eat birdseed, and even dried Ants' eggs. They cannot stand much damp, and a foggy winter must be guarded against by artificial heat.

The above list of mammals, though not a very large one, indicates sufficiently what may be done by any private individual attempting the study of living mammals (without the abundant resources of wealthy zoological societies), and only adopting commonsense treatment of the animals. It may be added that foreign Mammalia do not require to be kept day and night in a hot-house temperature, but are much better if not coddled. Dry cold will not do the majority of them much harm, but draughts, damp, and fog must be carefully avoided. The most convenient way of keeping them is to have the collection in a snugly built outhouse, lighted from the top to economise wall space; and during the past winter I have found that a building fourteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and ten feet high can be kept comfortably