The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)Phillip, Arthur
History
The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)
Phillip, Arthur
Natural history -- Australia -- New South Wales; New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Norfolk Island
This specimen is a male. The fur is long, but close and thick; of a mixed
brown or greyish colour on the back, under the belly and neck, of a
yellowish white. Its length is about eighteen inches, exclusive of the
tail, which is twelve inches long, and prehensile. The face is three
inches in length, broad above and very pointed at the muzzle, which is
furnished with long whiskers. The eyes are very large, but not fierce. On
the fore feet are five claws; on the hind, three and a thumb. The teeth
are two in the front of the upper jaw, and two in the lower; the upper
projecting beyond the under. In the Kanguroo it is remarkable that there
are four teeth in the upper jaw, opposed to two in the under. The
testicles are contained in a pendulous scrotum, between the two thighs of
the hind legs, as in the common opossum. The affinity of almost all the
quadrupeds yet discovered on this coast to the opossum kind, in the
circumstance of the pouch in which the female receives and suckles her
young, seems to open a field of investigation most interesting to the
naturalist: and the public will doubtless learn with pleasure, that it is
the intention of the most able comparative anatomist of the age, to give
a paper on this subject to the Royal Society. It cannot, therefore, be
necessary at present to pursue the enquiry any farther.
THE VULPINE OPOSSUM.
This is not unlike the common fox in shape, but considerably inferior to
it in respect to size, being, from the point of the nose to the setting
on of the tail, only twenty-six inches; the tail itself fifteen inches:
the upper parts of the body are of a grisly colour, arising from a
mixture of dusky and white hairs, with rufous-yellow tinge; the head and
shoulders partaking most of this last colour: round the eyes blackish:
above the nostrils ten or twelve black whiskers, four inches or more in
length: all the under parts of the body are of a tawny buff-colour,
deepest on the throat, where the bottom of the hairs are rust-colour: the
tail is of the colour of the back for about one quarter of its length,
from thence to the end, black: the toes on the fore feet are five in
number, the inner one placed high up: on the hind feet four toes only:
with a thumb, consisting of two joints, without a claw, placed high up at
the base of the inner toe. The whole foot serving the purpose of a hand,
as observable in many of the opossum genus. The legs are much shorter in
proportion than those of the common fox: the ears about one inch and an
half in length: in the upper jaw are six cutting teeth, and four
grinders, with two small canine teeth placed at an equal distance between
them: in the under jaw two long cutting teeth, not unlike those of a
squirrel, and four grinders to answer those in the upper jaw, but no
canine teeth.--A representation of the mouth and teeth may be seen in one
of the following plates.
NORFOLK ISLAND FLYING SQUIRREL.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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