332 Prof. Owen on a neio species of Dinotheriura. 



Herbivorous Cetacea of Cuvier with the Pachyderms, and 

 especially with the group containing the Dinotherium. But 

 the close relation manifested by this extinct genus to the Mas- 

 todon, in its molar teeth and inferior tusks, strongly argued 

 it to belong to the proboscidian rather than to the aquatic or 

 cetaceous family of Pachyderms. The femur associated with 

 the jaw and teeth of the Dinotherium from Darling Downs 

 gives the required evidence of its having been, like the Mas- 

 todon and Elephant, a heavy terrestrial quadruped, and the 

 differences which I have pointed out (ante p. 8) between the 

 femur of the Australian Pachyderm and that of the Mastodon 

 giganteus may be regarded as indicating the distinctive cha- 

 racters of the femur in the genus Dinotherium. 



Although this much-desired evidence has thus unexpect- 

 edly reached us from Australia, it cannot be doubted that it 

 will be ultimately corroborated by the discovery, in the rich 

 depositaries at Epplesheim and at Anch, of bones of the ex- 

 tremities associated with the characteristic teeth of the Dino- 

 theres. 



It is well known that the double transverse- ridged grinding 

 surface, which characterizes the teeth of the Tapir, and is ex- 

 hibited on a gigantic scale in those of the Dinothere (Cuvier's 

 Gigantic Tapir), and by the Mastodon giganteus in its anterior 

 molars, is likewise present in the molars of the Manatee and 

 Kangaroo : and the similarity is sufficiently close to have 

 warranted perhaps the supposition, if we had had only the re- 

 mains of the jaw and teeth to reason from, that some still 

 more gigantic form of Macropus than the Gigas and Titan of 

 the Wellington bone-caves had formerly existed in Australia : 

 but it might, on the other hand, have been contended that a 

 gigantic form of Herbivorous Cetacean had formerly browsed 

 on the shores of Australia ; and, indeed, without other evi- 

 dence, the advocates of M. de BlainvihVs hypothesis might 

 have held this conclusion to be quite compatible with the ad- 

 mission of the generic relationship of the fossil of the Darling 

 Downs with the Dinotherium of Europe. The happy disco- 

 very of the femur, while it shows that the mammal in question 

 was neither Kangaroo nor Manatee, proves that the genus to 

 which it truly appertains was a quadrupedal and terrestrial 

 Pachyderm with thick and stout extremities adapted to the 

 support and progression of the massive frame which charac- 

 terizes the known Proboscidian Pachyderms. 



I propose to designate the Australian Pachyderm by the 

 name of Dinotherium Australe. 



London, March 13, 1843. 



