nslation of
its Latin one. Its non-prehensile tail, peculiar feet, and different
arrangement of teeth, pointed out to naturalists that it entered into a
genus distinct from the American opossums; and to this genus the name of
_Thylacinus_[155] has been applied; its specific name _cynocephalus_
being still retained in conformity with zoological nomenclature,
although M. Temminck, the founder of the genus, honoured the species
with the name of its first describer, and called it _Thylacinus
Harrisii_.

Mr Gould has given a short account of this quadruped in his great work,
"The Mammals of Australia," accompanied with two plates, one showing the
head of the male, of the natural size, in such a point of view as to
exhibit the applicability of one of the names applied to it by the
colonists, that of "zebra-wolf." He justly remarks that it must be
regarded as by far the most formidable of all the marsupial animals, as
it certainly is the most savage indigenous quadruped belonging to the
Australian continent. Although it is too feeble to make a successful
attack on man, it commits great havoc among the smaller quadrupeds of
the country; and to the settler it is a great object of dread, as his
poultry and other domestic animals are never safe from its attacks. His
sheep are, especially, an object of the colonist's anxious care, as he
can house his poultry, and thus secure them from the prowler; but his
flocks, wandering about over the country, are liable to be attacked at
night by the tiger-wolf, whose habits are strictly nocturnal. Mr Gunn
has seen some so large and powerful that a number of dogs would not face
one of them. It has become an object with the settler to destroy every
specimen he can fall in with, so that it is much rarer than it was at
the time Mr Harris, its first describer, wrote its history, at least in
the cultivated districts. Much, however, of Van Diemen's Land is still
in a state of nature, and as large tracts of forest-land remain yet
uncleared, there is abundance of covert for it still in the more remote
parts of the colony, and it is even now often seen at Woolnoth and among
the Hampshire hills. In such places it feeds on the smaller species of
kangaroos and other marsupials,--bandicoots, and kangaroo-rats, while
even the prickle-covered echidna--a much more formidable mouthful than
any hedgehog--supplies the tiger-wolf with a portion of its sustenance.
The specimen described by Mr Harris was caught in a