The First Is The Small
Flying Opossum, Belideus Ariel, A Beautiful Little Animal,
Exactly Line A Small Flying Squirrel In Appearance, But Belonging
To The Marsupial Order.
The other three are species of the
curious genus Cuscus, which is peculiar to the Austro-Malayan
region.
These are opossum-like animals, with a long prehensile
tail, of which the terminal half is generally bare. They have
small heads, large eyes, and a dense covering of woolly fur,
which is often pure white with irregular black spots or blotches,
or sometimes ashy brown with or without white spots. They live in
trees, feeding upon the leaves, of which they devour large
quantities, they move about slowly, and are difficult to kill,
owing to the thickness of their fur, and their tenacity of life.
A heavy charge of shot will often lodge in the slain and do them
no harm, and even breaking the spine or piercing the brain will
not kill them for some hours. The natives everywhere eat their
flesh, and as their motions are so slow, easily catch them by
climbing; so that it is wonderful they have not been
exterminated. It may be, however, that their dense woolly fur
protects them from birds of prey, and the islands they live in
are too thinly inhabited for man to be able to exterminate them.
The figure represents Cuscus ornatus, a new species discovered by
me in Batchian, and which also inhabits Ternate. It is peculiar
to the Moluccas, while the two other species which inhabit Ceram
are found also in New Guinea and Waigiou.
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