235 



REMARKS ON POST-TERTIARY PHASCOLOMYIDM 



By C. W. De Vis, M.A., Cork. Mem. 



In furtherance of some future catalogue of the post-tertiary 

 fossils of Queensland locally preserved, the wombat contents of the 

 collection have in their turn undergone examination. From that 

 scrutiny one rises with the impression that our recorded knowledge 

 of the family is not in every respect as certain or, on the whole, quite 

 as complete as it might be, and there ensues a desire to ask that one 

 judgment delivered respecting them may be reconsidered, and one 

 species added to their number. But before all things it is obli- 

 gatory to declare that the task of determining the extinct species 

 of Phascolomys could not have been undertaken at the antipodes 

 prior to the publication of Mr. Lyddeker's Catalogue of Fossil 

 Marsupials, followed by the Catalogue of Recent Marsupials placed 

 in our hands by Mr. Thomas. To the labours of both these writers 

 we in Australia are deeply indebted. But we may presume that 

 neither of the authors would insist upon his determinations being- 

 considered as in all cases final, for it must be that conclusions based 

 on a comparatively small number of specimens, or upon descriptions 

 alone, will undergo some modification. More especially is this to 

 be expected in cases of opinion founded on a few cranial remains 

 of the wombats that were. Naturalists will agree that if we 

 neglect the " personal equation," observation may generally be 

 taken to vary in value as the material observed varies in quantity, 

 and on this account they will not mistake for an idle vaunt the 

 statement that the collection of wombat fossils examined contains 

 over two hundred specimens, exclusive of vertebra?, and so forms, 

 it is believed, by far the largest series as yet gathered from that 

 prolific field, the valley of the Condamine. 



