The Living Animals of the World, Volume I: Mammals

the World The Living Animals of366

specimen of the kind I had seen; and after an hour's hard work I handed over the body to the owners, who immediately cut it up and roasted it for supper." The remarkable tenacity of life possessed by the cuscus is fully attested to by Dr. Wallace. : " He says They move about slowly, and are most difficult to kill, owing to the thickness of their skins and tenacity of life. A heavy charge of shot will often lodge in the skin and do them no harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing the brain will not kill them for some hours. The natives everywhere eat their flesh; and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by climbing; so that it is wonderful that they have not been exterminated. It may be, however, that their dense woolly fur protects them from birds of prey, and the islands they live in are too thinly inhabited for man to be able to exterminate them." One of the most notable circumstances respecting the cuscus is the fact that it is one of the few marsupials whose geographical distribution

Photo by W. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S.] \Croydon. extends so far east in the Malay Archipelago as CUSCTJS. SPOTTED to be found associated with many of the higher soft, woolly fur, which in this animals, withThe cusouses are sleepy species is curiously variegated in colour. mammalia which are altogether unrepresented in Australia or New Guinea. The Moluccas, including notably the islands of Silolo, Ceram, Boru, and many smaller ones, for example, produce no less than three species of cuscus, and are also the home of a species of baboon, a civet-little flying-cat, a deer, and that remarkable pig the babirusa. One other marsupial, a phalanger, is likewise a denizen of these islands. It has been suggested by Dr. Wallace that none of the foregoing higher mammals are possibly indigenous to the Moluccas. The baboon, he remarks, is only found in the island of Batchian, and seems to be much out of place there. It probably originated from some individuals which escaped from confinement, these and similar animals being often kept as pets by the Malay inhabitants and carried about in their praus. The civet-cat, which is more common in the Philippines and throughout the Indo-Malay region, is also carried about in cages from one island to another, and not infrequently liberated after the civet has been abstracted from them. The deer, which is likewise tamed and petted, its flesh also being much esteemed for food, might very naturally have been brought by the Malays from Java with the express object of its acclimatisation. The babirusa, whose headquarters are in the island of Celebes, is only found in Boru, its nearest neighbour in the Moluccan group. Dr. Wallace anticipates that these two islands were in former times more closely connected by land, and that under such conditions the babirusa may have swum across the intervening channel. Should these several hypotheses be correct, the Molucca Islands must be regarded, from a zoological standpoint, as an essentially Australasian or marsupial-producing region.

THE WOMBATS.

The Wombat Family, claiming the next position in the marsupial galaxy, constitutes the very antithesis to the light, and graceful arboreal phalangers. There are but three known species, one of these inhabiting Tasmania and the adjacent islands, while the other two are peculiar to the southern region of the Australian Continent. In forms and gait their thick-set tailless bodies suggest a cross between a small bear and a capybara, and as "bears" and "badgers"

Marsupials and Monotremes 36?

is perhaps the most they are familiarly known by the Australian colonists. The badger simile with reference to their habit of excavating huge earth-burrows as dwelling- pertinently applied place^, and out of which they customarily emerge only at night to feed. The TASMANIAN WOMBAT, at all events, is essentially gregarious in its habits. In the neighbourhood ol Swansea, on the east coast, it is, or was, particularly abundant, forming regular warrens among a lighlt undergrowth of vegetation, through which travelling on horseback is a distinctly risky proceeding. The temperament of the wombat is peculiarly placid; and hence, as it might be anticipated, they are essentially long-lived. One, Charlie by name, which has been domiciled at the Zoo for the past thirty years, is still hale and hearty, and evidently disinclined yet awhile to immolate himself on the altar of fame as a much-needed successor to the antique effigy which has for so long represented his species in the British Natural History Museum. Waiting for dead men's shoes is a proverbially tedious task, and for a coveted wombat's skin so. evidently more is The tough hide, with its thick, harsh fur, of the Tasmanian wombat, or "badger," as it locally dubbed, is somewhat highly prized in the land of its birth. For floor- and door-mats and rugs the pelt is practically indestructible; and as such, though scarcely a thing of beauty, the special pride of the thrifty housewife. This animal is also not infrequently made a household pet, and will waddle as complacently as an over-fed poodle around the premises 'after its owner. The wombat, like the large majority of the marsupial animals, is for the 'most part nocturnal in habits, and a strict vegetarian.

The wombats present several interestingly distinct structural peculiarities. In the first place, their teeth, which are twenty-four in number, all grow uninterruptedly throughout life, and are consequently devoid of roots. The incisor teeth are represented by but a single pair in each jaw, and, having enamel only on their front surfaces, wear away in a chisel-like form, as in the beavers and other rodents. Superficially in both form and habits, as well as in the character of their dentition, the wombats may in fact be aptly likened to some unwieldy is that it isrepresentative of the Rodent Order. Another structural peculiarity of the wombat the proud possessor of two more pairs of ribs than any other marsupial.

Of the three known species, the COMMON WOMBAT of the South and Eastern Australian States is the largest, attaining to a length of as much as 3 feet. The colour of this form is subject to considerable variation, being sometimes yellow, yellow more or less mixed with black, or completely black. Albinism, as in the kangaroos and phalangers, is of apparently rare occurrence. The hair, while coarse, is less so than in the Tasmanian is knownspecies. What as the HAIRY-NOSED WOMBAT, inhabiting South Australia, is intermediate in Size be- Photo by E. Landor] [Baling, tween the common and COMMON WOMBAT. size of a small pig.the Tasmanian Varieties; A burrowing animal about the

of the World368 The Living Animals

its most distinctive features are the soft and silky character of its brownish hair, and its longer and more pointed ears. The coarseness of the hair of the Tasmanian species has been previously referred to; in colour it is most usually a dark greyish brown, while the ears are small and rounded. The flesh of the wombat is somewhat esteemed for food, being regarded by some as equal is it in flavour. The predilection of tame specimens for milk to pork, and much resembling very strong, and it has been recorded of one animal that it was not only in the habit of seeking out the milk-pans and pushing off the covers in order to drink the contents, but afterwards of taking a bath in what was left.

A remarkable habit has been accredited to the wombat which invites scientific investigation. It is said to be capable of sustaining life for an abnormally long period under water, and that when in the course of its travels it meets with a pond or river it does not attempt to swim, but, deliberately entering the water, walks along the bottom, and so emerges on the opposite bank. The animals of Australia living in not very remote geological times included a near ally of the wombat which equalled a tapir in dimensions.

THE BANDICOOTS.

The Australian BANDI- COOTS not to be confounded

Photo by E. [Eating. HAIRY-NOSED WOMBAT. with their namesake of India, A form peculiar to South Australia. which is a big rat constitute a very distinct little family group. They number in all some eight or nine species, distributed throughout the length and breadth of Australia and Tasmania, and found also in New Guinea. The largest member is about the size of a rabbit; and as its general shape, long ears, and soft silky hair impart some slight resemblance to that rodent, it is commonly known as the BABBIT-BANDICOOT. With the above-enumerated points, however, the likeness ceases its possession of a moderately long tail, pointed snout, and feet 'modified on a plan closely resembling those of the kangaroo's indicating its essentially distinct nature. In a second variety, having somewhat the same external contour, but smaller in size, the fore limbs are very short, and the feet so modified that only two toes are visible externally. With reference to this peculiar feature, it is known as the PIG-FOOTED BANDICOOT. In a third kind of similar dimensions, with harsh brown fur, the ears are comparatively short, and the snout is so abnormally prolonged that it has been appropriately named the LONG-NOSED BANDICOOT. Superficially, in point of fact, this and other allied species so closely resemble certain of the long-snouted insectivorous mammals, such as the Tenrec and Solenodon, that they might be excusably mistaken by the non-scientific for members of the same group. The bandicoots are chiefly for their meals whennocturnal, and at all events incorrigible " sun-downers," turning up the evening shadows fall, and taking a heavy and unwelcome toll of the farmers' potatoes, beets, or other root crops. Like the wombat, already described, they are earth-burrowers. Some of them, however, construct nests above-ground in long coarse grass or low tangled shrubs, which are so ingeniously built in accord with their environment as to readily escape detection.

Photo by G. W. Wilson & Co., Ltd.) [Aberdeen,

COMMON WOMBAT.

The Wombats may be said to hold the place occupied in other parts of the world by the Badgers. 369 47

Insects and worms, in addition to a main diet of vegetable matter, contribute to the bandicoot's somewhat heterogeneous menu.

The wood- and root-boring larvae of a moth which infests the Australian wattle- or acacia-trees are a very favourite food with several of the species, and it is worthy of remark that the bandicoots are not alone in displaying a penchant for this delicacy. Under the title of " " bardies they are collected and highly esteemed for food by the natives of Western Australia, who eat them either cooked or raw. These larvae are, moreover, acceptable to many European palates, and the writer has witnessed little faggot-like bundles of them brought round by the natives to the hotels at Geraldton, Western Australia, for sale or barter to chance customers. It may be observed in this connection that the analogous wood-boring larvae of the goat-moth, which were kept and specially fattened for the occasion, constituted one of the dainty dishes of the luxurious Eomans. One of the commonest species found in Tasmania is known as the BANDED or STRIPED-its far. TheBACKED BANDICOOT, being so named on account of the characteristic markings of general ground-colour of the coat is an almost equal admixture of black and yellow hairs, the black tint, however, prevailing on the back, and the lighter one on the sides. The hindquarters are, however, variegated by the presence of some three or four broad transverse stripes that are almost entirely black, while the intervening spaces are a light whitish yellow. A few shorter stripes are sometimes continued as far as the root of the tail, this appendage also is of a somewhat lighter tinthaving a dark line running along its upper surface. The head than the remainder of the body, while the breast, abdomen, and feet are white, slightly tinged with grey. The transversely striped pattern of ornamentation of the hindquarters of this bandicoot is of interest with relation to the circumstance that a similarly located banded variegation of the fur occurs also in the Tasmanian wolf, or thylacine, and in the banded ant-eater, described in a following section. As a colour-pattern it would appear to be quite peculiar to these marsupials, no such restriction of the markings occurring among the higher or placental mammals. In the South African suricate, a member of the Ichneumon Tribe, in which the nearest approach to this dorsal banding is met with, the stripes are equally developed as far forward as the base of the neck.