HALMATURUS RUFICOLLIS.
Rufous-necked Wallaby.

Kangurus ruficollis, Desm. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., tom. xvii. p. 37-—Ib. Ency. Méth. Mammalogie, p. 274.

Kangaroo a cou roux, F. Cuv. Dict. des Sci. Nat., tom. xxiv. p. 348.

Macropus ruficollis, Less. Man. de Mamm. p. 228.—Gould, Mon. of Macropodide, pl. | —Waterh. in Jard. Nat.
Lib., Marsupialia, p. 216.

Kangurus ruficollis, Peron.

Macropus rufo-griseus, Waterh. in Jard. Nat. Lib., Marsupialia, p. 217.

Kangurus rufo-griseus, Desm. Nouv. Dict. d’Hist. Nat., tom. xvii. p. 36.

Halmaturus griseo-rufus, Goldf. in Oken’s Isis, 1819, p. 267

Macropus (Halmaturus) ruficollis, Waterh. Nat. Hist. of Mamm., vol. i. Delors

Warroon, of the Aborigines of the Illawarra district.

 

Tue low table-lands of New South Wales, particularly those on which the Daveysia scrub abounds, are the
favourite localities of this species of Halmaturus. 1 found it especially abundant on the fine estate of
Charles Throsby, Esgq., at Bongbong, immediately behind Illawarra, and ascertained that it ranges westward
from thence nearly to Port Philip and eastward to Moreton Bay; it is also said to inhabit the larger islands
in Bass’s Straits. Since writing the account of this species given in my Monograph of the Kangaroos, referred
to above, numerous New South Wales specimens have been sent to me by my collectors, and many living
examples have been forwarded to this country, one of which is now (1854) living in the Menagerie of the
Zoological Society in the Regent’s Park. A careful examination of all these examples tends to strengthen
the supposition that the present animal and the Halmaturus Bennetti of Van Diemen’s Land are quite distinct ;
at the same time I cannot but admit that Iam still in doubt as to whether this is the case, or if the
differences they exhibit are due to local causes; under these circumstances, I have thought it best to figure
both animals under the names by which they are respectively known, and leave the determination of these
points to future research.

The specimens contained in the great collections of the Continent, particularly those of Paris and Leyden,
are from the mainland, and not from Van Diemen’s Land, and have the names of ruficolhs and rufo-griseus
attached to them,—appellations which are not applicable to the Tasmanian specimens. I have observed that
the mainland animals not only differ in colour, but are larger than those from the islands.

As is the case with most of the other species of the family, the male of the present animal much exceeds
the female both in the size of the body and in the strength of the fore-arm.

Fur moderate as to length and softness of texture ; general colour rusty brown pencilled with white,
brownish grey at the base succeeded by rusty, broadly annulated with white near the extremity and black
at the point; neck, shoulders and arms bright rust-red, pencilled with white; muzzle brownish black; on
the upper lip a tolerably distinct white mark, running backward and terminating beneath the eye; apical
half of the external surface of the ear blackish, internal surface of the ear white, narrowly margined at the
tip with black; on the chin a patch of brownish black; throat whitish; under surface greyish white, the
hairs being grey at the base and white at the extremity; hand black; tarsi clothed with hairs, which are
brownish black at the base and white at the tip; toes covered with black hairs; tail hoary grey, with a
pencil of black hairs at the tip.

The accompanying Plates represent the head of each sex of the natural size, and reduced figures of the
entire animals.