563 



ON A SMALL FOSSIL MARSUPIAL WITH LARGE 

 GROOVED PREMOLARS. 



By R. Broom, M.D., CM., B.Sc. 



(Plates XXV. and xlv.) 



At the Meeting of the Linnean Society on 26th June I com- 

 municated a paper " On a new fossil Marsupial allied to Hy})8i- 

 pryinnus, but resembling in some points the Playiaulacidoij'^ in 

 which I described two fragments of the upper and a portion of the 

 lower jaw of a small Marsupial, under the name Burramys jmrvit.^, 

 and regarded the form as being related to the Rat Kangaroo, but 

 exhibiting apparently by a parallel development some characters 

 of the Plagiaulacidce. Of this paper an abstract was published at 

 the time. Since then I have been fortunate in discovering some 

 more perfect specimens which throw much additional light on the 

 structure of the form. I have therefore thought it advisable, with 

 the permission of the Council, to withdraw the previous paper 

 and give a more complete description in the light of the more 

 recent finds. 



The specimens I have obtained are all from a small calcareous 

 deposit in the neighbourhood of Taralga, N.S.W. This deposit is 

 situated on the very top of a limestone hill, and is evidently the 

 remains of the floor of a cave, whose roof and sides have long 

 since been weathered away. The stone is very hard and consists 

 of a brownish lime deposit in which are imbedded innumerable 

 small bones, with the remains of a few stalactites and an occa- 

 sional calcite rhomb. The bones are mostly those of small 

 marsupials, though I ha^'e also found the remains of at least one 

 species of rodent and the very perfect crar-ium of a small bird. 



