192 ON BRACHALLETES PALMERI AN EXTINCT MARSUPIAL, 



The greatest breadth of this thigh-bone between the lower and 

 inner edge of the head and the middle of the outer edge of the 

 trochanter is 5 J inches — its breadth at the distal end of the 

 trochanterian pit is 3 inches, and its height from the same point 

 to the top of the trochanter major is 3 J inches. The correspond- 

 iDg numbers in P. Azael are 4f, 3|, and 4£, in M. Titan 3£, 2-J-, 

 and 2|, and in M. major 2|, If, and 2 J. The breadth of the 

 femur of Brachalletes being to that of the bone of a kangaroo 

 six feet long from tip to tip as 41, 22, the length of the extinct 

 animal represented by it may have been about 11 feet 6 inches. 



The broad and low trochanter-major presents but a very dubious 

 indication of a suture defining an anchylosed tuberosity ; the 

 antero-internal constriction is no less obscure. The upper surface 

 of the neck is long and gently sloping ; the head strongly convex, 

 much more so than in P. Azael, and together with the neck is set on 

 less obliquely with the transverse diameter of the shaft than in 

 M. major. The lesser trochanter departs considerably from its 

 position and form in tyjjical macropods ; it is much further 

 removed downward from the level of the head, and in this respect 

 resembles that of P. Azael ; it consists of a strong round tubercle, 

 from which suddenly slopes away a low ridge, or rather ridge-like 

 expansion of the intero-posterior edge of the sLaft ; the depression 

 between this ridge and the intero-anterior edge is long and deep ; 

 the broad surface between it and the trochanterian fossa is gently 

 convex ; the fossa itself is long and deeply excavated ; the neck is 

 relatively longer than in the true kangaroos, and the fossa more 

 external, the space between it and the edge of the trochanter 

 being but a fourth of the whole breadth of the bone, whereas in 

 M. Major it is four-sevenths. The posterior ridge continued 

 downward from the great trochanter for five inches does not 

 terminate abruptly and sharply, but subsides gradually into the 

 rough depression beneath. In M. Major a transverse line touching 

 the bottom of the fossa cuts the lower third of the muscular scar 

 above mentioned ; in the fossil this rough tract is lower than that 

 imaginary line by a space equal to half its own length. The shaft 

 is antero-posteriorly compressed, and has a regularly oval-section ; 



