70 AFFINITIES AND HABITS OF THYLACOLEO, 



or fruits swallowed in slices, unless perhaps when the fruits were 

 drop ripe. But apart from the difficulty that fruits are only ripe 

 at one or occasionally at two seasons of the year, unless we are 

 also to assume the very improbable condition of there being no 

 parrots, parrakeets, cockatoos or flying foxes, there wonld be very 

 little chance of the fruit ever being allowed to become drop ripe. 

 "With succulent roots and bulbs the same difficulty arises as with 

 the fruits, that even the most succulent, if we could suppose them 

 digestible in slices, cannot be had in a succulent condition all the 

 year round. 



With regard to the suggestion that " small mammals, birds, 

 and eggs " may have formed part of the diet, it depends con- 

 siderably on what size of birds and mammals is meant, whether 

 isuch can be regarded as possible. There are no birds in Australia 

 which Thylacoleo would have been at all likely to capture, except 

 perhaps the large flightless Emus and Cassowaries, and even if 

 ' other small flightless sorts existed, which is exceedingly impro- 

 bable with Thylacines, Sarcophiles and Dasyures prowling about, 

 they could not have been numerous or lasted long; while if the 

 Emus and other allied forms were eaten surely Thylacoleo must 

 be regarded as a carnivorous animal. As for mammals, we are 

 fortunately not in ignorance of the smaller sorts that were contem- 

 poraries of the Thylacoleo, and we find that though many of the 

 species were different the general character of the fauna differed 

 but little from that found to-day. Ring-tailed and Dormouse 

 Phalangers were common, as was also a small form allied to the 

 flying Phalanger; while of the forms frequenting the ground the 

 commonest were Rat-kangaroos, Bandicoots and Rats ; and the 

 only other small Mammal that was common was the small pouched- 

 mouse. Whatever were the habits of Thylacoleo, it may be 

 regarded as practically certain that it could not have caught any 

 of the arboreal forms, and of the ground-living small mammals 

 the Bandicoots alone might possibly have been captured. But 

 then only an animal that was a regular carnivore would be likely 

 to kill or able to devour a Bandicoot. The close resemblance of 

 the general character of the smaller fauna to that present to-day 



