Yellow-bellied Flying-O.—
<i>Petaurus australis</i>, Shaw.
Of the rare little animal called Leadbeater's Opossum, only one specimen has been found, and that in Victoria; it is <i>Gymnobelideus leadbeateri</i>, and is the only species of this genus.
1608. John Smith, `Travels, Adventures, and Observations in Europe, Asia, Africke, and America, beginning about 1593, and continued to 1629;' 2 vols., Richmond, U.S., reprinted 1819; vol. i. p. 124 [On the American animal; in the part about Virginia, 1608]:
"An Opassom hath a head like a Swine,—a taile like a Rat, and is of the bigness of a Cat. Under the belly she hath a bagge, wherein she lodgeth, carrieth and suckleth her young."
[This is the American opossum. There are only two known genera of living marsupials outside the Australian region.]
1770. `Capt. Cook's Journal' (edition Wharton, 1893), p. 294 [at Endeavour River, Aug. 4, 1770]:
"Here are Wolves, Possums, an animal like a ratt, and snakes."
1770. J. Banks, `Journal,' July 26, (edition Hooker, 1896, p. 291):
"While botanising to-day I had the good fortune to take an animal of the opossum (<i>Didelphis</i>) tribe; it was a female, and with it I took two young ones. It was not unlike that remarkable one which De Buffon has described by the name of <i>Phalanger</i> as an American animal. It was, however, not the same. M. de Buffon is certainly wrong in asserting that this tribe is peculiar to America, and in all probability, as Pallas has said in his <i>Zoologia</i>, the <i>Phalanger</i> itself is a native of the East Indies, as my animals and that agree in the extraordinary conformation of their feet, in which they differ from all others."
1789. Governor Phillip, `Voyage to Botany Bay,' p. 104: