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jaw, the carnivorous characters pointed out by Owen seem to 

 disappear, while the general resemblances to the less specialised 

 diprotodonts become more than ever apparent. . . . 



" The evidence that Ptilodus and Plagiaulax were not car- 

 nivorous in habits seems conclusive ; but as to whether they 

 were insectivorous, herbivorous, or frugivorous there may still 

 be some differences of opinion. I am inclined to consider them 

 as frugivorous, since the incisors were well fitted for picking 

 small fruits or berries, while the large cutting-blades of the 

 lower premolars were admirably adapted to cutting or slicing 

 the rinds of tough-skinned berries or to chopping up fleshy 

 fruits held against the blunt-pointed premolars of the upper 

 jaw. For masticating the seeds of such small fruits and berries 

 the multituberculate molars were amply sufficient." 



In connection with the foregoing, reference may be made 

 to a paper by Miss P. H. Dederer in vol. xliii. (pp. 616-18) of 

 the American Naturalist on the affinities of the South American 

 marsupials of the genus Ccenolestes. From the structure of 

 the skull and teeth these animals appear to be more nearly 

 related to the polyprotodonts than to the diprotodonts, among 

 which they have hitherto been placed. In fact, the large 

 pair of lower incisors, which may well be an adaptive feature, 

 forms practically the only diprotodont character, the dentition 

 in other respects being essentially polyprotodont. Although 

 the paper relates only to the existing forms, it has an im- 

 portant palaeontological application, for if Ccenolestes be a 

 polyprotodont, or the representative of an independent sub- 

 ordinal group, it follows that the same holds good for the 

 extinct representatives of the same family, the Epa north idee, 

 so abundant in the Santa Cruz formation of Patagonia. 



To the Geological Magazine for 1909, pp. 210 and 211, Mr. B. H. 

 Woodward has contributed a paper on the fossil marsupials 

 of Western Australia, in which it is shown that remains of 

 Diprotodon occur in association with those of existing species of 

 kangaroos, thereby suggesting that the former animal became 

 extinct at no very distant date. 



Much interest attaches to the description of remains of two 

 birds from the Pleistocene asphalt-beds of Bancho la Brea, 

 California, by Mr. S. H. Miller in the Publications of California 

 University, Bull. Dep. Geol., vol. v. pp. 285 and 305. The first 

 species is known by a tarsometatarsus, which appears to 

 indicate a peacock of the typical Indo-Malay genus Pavo, 



