“The female is said to bring forth her young in a hole in the ground or in a fallen tree, and to produce from five to nine in a litter. I have not myself observed more than seven young attached to the nipples.” It is not nocturnal in its habits.
With regard to the range of the genus Myrmecobius, Mr. Gould states that it is very generally dispersed over the interior of the Swan River Settlement, from King George’s Sound on the south to the neighbourhood of Moor’s River on the north, and as far westward as civilised man has yet been able to penetrate. Its species are also found near the Murray and Darling.
This many-toothed Ant-eating Marsupial has always been interesting to geologists, for in the Stonesfield slates of the Oolitic formation of England, which lie low down in the Great Oolite, the lower jaws of an animal have been found greatly resembling those of Myrmecobius. The fossil Amphitherium has the jaws but slightly inflected, and is not without resemblance to insectivorous creatures; but, nevertheless, its similarity to Myrmecobius struck Owen and Lyell many years since.
GENUS DASYURUS.—THE URSINE DASYURE.[117]
Being a great enemy of the poultry and tender rearlings of the colonists of Van Diemen’s Land, this small creature has earned the name of the “Native Devil.” It may be compared to a Bear, with a body about two feet in length, and the resemblance is tolerably correct in the fur, general proportions of the body and limbs, and also in its gait and its actions. The Dasyure, however, has a longer tail than the Bear, and never grows larger than a Badger. It is a short animal, with a round broad head and rather a long snout, and the coarse black fur (brown-black on the head, tail, and beneath) is marked by one broad white band across the chest and by another over the back, close to the tail. The tail is about half the length of the head and trunk. Harris notices that these animals were very common on the British first settling at Hobart Town, and were particularly destructive to poultry, and Mr. Gunn states that they commit great havoc among Sheep, and that notwithstanding their comparatively small size, they are so fierce that they are a match for any ordinary Dog.
DASYURE.
As the settlements increased in Tasmania, and the ground became cleared, the animals were driven from their haunts near the town to the deeper recesses of the forests yet unexplored. They were easily procured by setting a trap in the most unfrequented parts of the woods, baited with raw flesh, all kinds of which they will eat indiscriminately and voraciously. They also, it is probable, prey on dead fish and blubber, as their tracks are frequently found on the sands of the sea-shore. In a state of confinement they appear to be untamably savage, biting severely, and uttering at the same time a low yelling growl. A male and female which Mr. Harris kept for a couple of months, chained together in an empty cask, were continually fighting. Their quarrels began as soon as it was dark, as they slept all day, and continued throughout the night almost without intermission, accompanied by a kind of hollow barking, not unlike that of a Dog, and sometimes a sudden kind of snorting, as if the breath were restrained a considerable time and then suddenly expelled. They frequently sat on their hind parts, and used their fore paws to convey food to their mouths. The muscles of the jaws were strong, and they crushed the largest bones asunder with ease.
This Dasyure, like the others of the genus, has the incisor teeth equal, and there are eight of them in the upper jaw and six in the lower. The four canines are large, and there are two powerful premolars in each jaw and on each side. These are succeeded by four molars above and below, and on both sides of the mouth.
The incisor teeth, equal in size, are arranged in a semicircle in the upper jaw, and those of the lower jaw have a corresponding direction, but they are rather the stouter. The canines are well developed, and those of the lower jaw bite in front of those of the upper. They look eminently adapted for stopping and seizing prey, and their carnivorous character is surpassed by that of the premolars and true molars. These last have a triangular grinding surface: the first has four sharp cusps, the second and third have five, and the last, which is the smallest in the upper jaw, has only three. In the lower jaw the last molar is of the same size as the last but one, and has four cusps; and the other molars have much resemblance to those in the upper jaw.