4. CHOEROPUS CASTANOTUS, GRAY.
This animal was first killed on the Darling, but the specimen was destroyed by the dogs. Two or three were afterwards taken alive in latitude 26 1/2 degrees. They were found lying out in tufts of grass, and when roused betook themselves after a short run, to some hollow logs where they were easily cut out. The Choeroups is a beautiful animal, about eight inches long in the body, with a tail of considerable length, having a tuft at the end. The fur is a silvery grey, and very soft. When confined in a box they ate sparingly of grass and young leaves, but preferred meat and the offal of birds shot for them. The Choeropus is insectivorous, and I was therefore not surprised at their taking to animal food, which, however, not agreeing with them, they died one after the other. They squat like rabbits, laying their broad ears along their backs in the same kind of way.
5. HAPALOTIS MITCHELLII.
This beautiful little animal was, as I have observed in the introduction to this notice, first seen in the vicinity of the Depot. It was subsequently found in vast numbers, inhabiting the sandy ridges from Fort Grey to Lake Torrens. Those immense banks of sand were in truth marked over with their footprints as if an army of mice or rats had been running over them. They are not much larger than a mouse, have a beautiful full black eye, long ears, and tail feathered towards the end. The colour of the fur is a light red, in rising they hop on their hind legs, and when tired go on all four, holding their tail perfectly horizontal. They breed in the flats on little mounds, burrowing inwards from the edge; various passages tending like the radii of a wheel to a common centre, to which a hole is made from the top of the mound, so that there is a communication from it to all the passages.
They are taken by the natives in hundreds, who avail themselves of a fall of rain to rove through the sandy ridges to hunt these little animals and the talpero, Perameles, as long as there shall be surface water. We had five of these little animals in a box, that thrived beautifully on oats, and I should have succeeded in getting them to Adelaide if it had not been for the carelessness of one of the men in fastening a tarpauline down over them one dreadful day, by which means they were smothered.
6. MUS CONDITOR, GOULD.--The Building Rat.
Inhabits the brushes in the Darling, in which it builds a nest of small sticks, varying in length from eight inches to three, and in thickness, from that of a quill to that of the thumb. The fabric is so firm and compact as almost to defy destruction except by fire. The animals live in communities, and have passages leading into apartments in the centre of the mound or pyramid, which might consist of three or four wheelbarrows full of the sticks, are about four feet in diameter, and three feet high. The animal itself is like an ordinary rat, only that it has longer ears and its hind feet are disproportioned to the fore feet. It was not found beyond latitude 30 degrees. See page 120, Vol. I.
7. ACROBATES PYGMAEA.--Flying Opossum Mouse.
This beautiful and delicate little animal was killed in a Box tree, whence it came out of a hole, and ran with several others along a branch, retreating again with great swiftness. It was so small that if the moon had not been very bright it could not have been seen. It is somewhat less than a mouse in size and has a tail like an emu's feather, its skin being of a dark brown.
8. LAGORCHESTES FASCIATUS (L. ALBIPILIS, GOULD?).--Fasciated Kangaroo.