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Show 1894.] DIDELPHYIDiE OF S.E. BRAZIL. 463 certainty about the feeding in freedom, the most natural way was to examine the excrements of fresh captured specimens. These I always found to be composed principally of hard remnants of insects and small Arthropoda-elytra of beetles, legs and scales of butterflies, and wings of flies. Having at m y disposal a flourishing brood of meal-worms ( Tenebrio molitor), which I had obtained from Europe as a convenient food for the numerous birds, reptiles, and batra-chian3 which I have always around me for daily observations of their habits, generally most insufficiently known, it was not very difficult to accustom these marsupials to take the worms. Soon they became very fond of meal-worms and ran to meet the offering hand or pincers. The prey seized, they sit up like a squirrel and so many rodents, and, holding the insect with the hands (opposing sometimes only the first finger, sometimes the first two to the remainder), they crush it rapidly with visible eagerness and audible smacking. This aspect of the graceful animal always reminds me of the European Dormouse. The eyes, like black resplendent pearls, give to the physiognomy of the face an expression particularly confident. All the movements are sudden, rapid, and executed with elegance. The animal is fond of water and milk, and will not delay long when these liquids are offered in a spoon. It drinks often and continuously, lapping like a dog or a cat, and water seems to be a most important article with it. During tbe clay it likes to sleep in some hiding-place, formed by leaves, cotton, or tow; but the sleep is not very deep, and short diurnal excursions in its cage are frequently observed. It seems to be most susceptible to cold and moisture. Towards the eveniug the little marsupial becomes more and more lively and agile, and during the night it is more or less in constant movement. There is thus no doubt that its habits are by preference nocturnal, and it is easily comprehensible why these animals are comparatively seldom met with during the day, except by the accidents above mentioned. Nearly all of my prisoners of Micoureus pusillus succeeded in finally escaping during the night; one was observed for nearly a fortnight after his escape in m y study, without any possibility of discovering his hiding-place during the day. He plundered m y caterpillars and chrysalids on his nocturnal depredations. The gait of Micoureus pusillus is somewhat different from that of a rodent of equal size. It is a trot, generally not so rapid as that of a house-mouse. When sleeping the tail is rolled up ; in movement it is extended in a straight line. I have sufficient proofs that Micoureus pusillus is not entirely unable to climb, but I am sure that in general it lives principally on the ground and that it has to be considered as very little arboreal. 5. PERAMYS TRISTRIATUS. With certainty I can distinguish only one member of the subgenus Peramys among the material of Didelphyidae collected in the Serra dos Orgaos. I identify it with the P. tristriatus |