318 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



a remarkable manner in both vertical and lateral extents towards its fore 

 extremity. The cavity of the nose was divided by a bony septum, as in one 

 species of the wombat. Thus were established proofs of the former exist- 

 ence in Australia of two genera of herbivorous marsupial animals, resembling 

 the pachyderms in proportions; one (Diprotodon) equalling or surpassing in 

 size the largest living rhinoceros, the other (Nototherium) equalling the ox 

 or tapir. 



Prof. Owen next referred to some fossils in the collection sent by Dr. 

 Hobson, from Melbourne, Australia Felix, which belonged to a species of 

 true wombat (Phascolomys), but four or five times larger than the largest 

 known existing species. These species had been noticed by the professor, 

 and referred to Phascolomys giyas, in the Transactions of tl\e Zoological Society, 

 As early as 1842, Professor Owen inferred from the fact of there having been 

 large herbivorous animals in Australia in former periods that a large carniv- 

 orous animal had coexisted with them. In a letter to the editor of the 

 Annals of Natural History, November 1, 1842, he writes: " Some destructive 

 species of this kind must have coexisted of larger dimensions than the 

 extinct Dasyurus Laniarius, the ancient destroyer of the now equally extinct 

 gigantic kangaroo (Macropus Titan), whose remains were discovered in the 

 bone caves of Wellington Valley." The Rev. Mr. Clarke, in his report to 

 the Governor of Australia, No. 10, October 14, 18o3, " On the Geology of the 

 Basin of the Condamine River," referring to this remark, observes : " The 

 discovery of what must have existed cannot be altogether incapable of demon- 

 stration; and, therefore, such a verification of Professor Owen's anticipation 

 is to be hoped for on many grounds." 



In 1816, the professor received from Mr. William Adeney portions of a 

 fossil skull of a carnivorous quadruped as large as a lion. These fossils 

 were discovered in the banks of the Timboon Lake, situated eighty miles 

 southwest of Melbourne. The lake is shallow, and becomes almost dry in 

 autumn, when its bed is covered with a pretty thick deposit of common salt 

 of good quality. The surrounding country is volcanic. The fossils occur in. 

 a narrow white strip of calcareous conglomerate, traversing the cla} T cliff, 

 which is here and there indented with capes of basaltic boulders. The fossil 

 in question included part of the right maxillary bone, with the last two molar 

 teeth. The first of these presented the trenchant or carnassial type of crown ; 

 the second was a small tubercular tooth, situated, as in the lion and tiger, on 

 the inner side of the back part of the carnassial. The crown of the carnas- 

 sial was two and a quarter inches in extent, that of the largest lion being one 

 and a half inches; the margin of this flesh-cutting tooth is straight in the 

 fossil, not indented as in the lion. A portion of the right ramus of the lower 

 jaw contained two teeth answering to those above, the caraassial with an 

 even cutting edge of one and a half inches in length ; the tubercular, which is 

 directly behind, is only half an inch long, and it is followed by the socket of 

 a still smaller molar. On closely comparing this fossil with the skulls of 

 existing carnivorous animals of the placental and marsupial orders, Professor 

 Owen concluded from the structure of the occiput, of the organ of hearing, 

 of the bony palate, and of the orbit in reference to the position of the lachry- 

 mal hole, that the large carnivore represented by that fossil belonged to the 

 marsupial order, not to the placental carnivora. He had proposed for it the 

 name Thylacoleo, or " lion with a pouch." 



Thus were completed, by evidence of species of quadrupeds that appear to 

 have become extinct in Australia, the representatives in the marsupial series 



