The general colour of the animal is black, inclining to brown beneath; the neck and body spotted with irregular roundish patches of white; the ears are pretty large, and stand erect, the visage is pointed, the muzzle furnished with long slender hairs; the fore, as well as hind legs, from the knees downward, almost naked, and ash-coloured; on the fore feet are five claws, and on the hind, four and a thumb without a claw; the tail, for about an inch and an half from the root, covered with hairs of the same length as those on the body, from thence to the end with long ones not unlike that of a squirrel.

The specimen from which the above account was taken, is a female, and has six teats placed in a circle, within the pouch.
Another animal of the opossum kind has been sent alive to the Rev.Dr.
Hamilton, Rector of St.Martin's, Westminster, and is now living in the possession of Mr.J.Hunter.It appears to be of the same sort as that mentioned in Captain Cook's first voyage,* and that also which was found near Adventure Bay, represented in the eighth plate of Captain Cook's third voyage, and slightly described in Vol.

I.p.109 of that work: but it must be owned, that neither its form nor character is very well expressed in that plate.
[* Hawkesw.

vol.iii.p.

182.] The countenance of this animal much resembles that of a fox, but its manners approach more nearly to those of the squirrel.