re, similar in every respect to that about Port
Jackson, except that no reed, neither living nor dead, could be found to
belong to it. It is certain, however, that there must be a reed, or a
flowering part of some kind. In the brushes, where the sandy soil is
somewhat ameliorated by the decay of vegetation, a few tufts of
indifferent grass might be seen; but the greater part of it was the
coarse wiry sort that grows in hassocks.

It is singular, that a place wherein food seemed to be so scarce should
yet be so thickly inhabited by the small brush kangaroo, and a new
quadruped, which was also a grass-eater.

This animal, being a new one, appears to deserve a particular
description. The Wombat (or, as it is called by the natives of Port
Jackson, the Womback) is a squat, thick, short-legged, and rather
inactive quadruped, with great appearance of stumpy strength, and
somewhat bigger than a large turnspit dog. Its figure and movements, if
they do not exactly resemble those of the bear, at least strongly remind
one of that animal.

Its length, from the tip of the tail to the tip of the nose, is thirty-one
inches, of which its body takes up twenty-three and five-tenths. The head
is seven inches, and the tail five-tenths. Its circumference behind the
forelegs, twenty-seven inches; across the thickest part of the belly,
thirty-one inches. Its weight by hand is somewhat between twenty-five and
thirty pounds. The hair is coarse, and about one inch or one inch and
five tenths in length, thinly set upon the belly, thicker on the back and
head, and thickest upon the loins and rump; the colour of it a light
sandy brown, of varying shades, but darkest along the back.

The head is large and flattish, and, when looking the animal full in the
face, seems, excluding the ears, to form nearly an equilateral triangle,
any side of which is about seven inches and five tenths in length, but
the upper side, or that which constitutes the breadth of the head, is
rather the shortest. The hair upon the face lies in regular order, as if
it were combed, with its ends pointed upwards in a kind of radii, from
the nose their centre.

The ears are sharp and erect, of two inches and three-tenths in length,
stand well asunder, and are in nowise disproportionate. The eyes are
small, and rather sunken than prominent, but quick and lively. They are
placed about two inches and five tenths asunder, a little below the
centre of the imaginary triangle towards