Tooth-marhs of TJtylacoleo. 97 



appearance of its having received a blow which has struck off a 

 fairly large conchoidal flake from the interior of the frag- 

 ment. As this has taken place subsequently to the longitudinal 

 fracturing of the bone, it could not have been made to get at 

 the marrow. Tlie bones certainly have been broken up very 

 effectively, and in a longitudinal direction in nearly every in- 

 stance, very few, not more than three or four specimens, being 

 fractured in a transverse direction only. The longitudinal frac- 

 ture, however, is not confined exclusively to bones and parts of 

 bones containing marrow, for the solid distal end of a large 

 femur (Plate XXXVI., Fig. 2) has been broken through quite apart 

 from the shaft, and two small jaw bones (one of which is seen in 

 Plate XXXVI., Fig. 14) are also cleanly split from end to end 

 through the teeth sockets, which explains the fact that teeth, often 

 themselves fractured, were met with, scattered through the clay 

 bed. Fig. 13, Plate XXXVI., is the dorsal portion of the prox- 

 imal phalanx of the fourth toe of a large extinct kangaroo. It 

 has evidently been sundered lengthwise from a bone similar to Fig. 

 12, Plate XXXVI. Then, finally, there is the large fragment of 

 a solid, massive bone (Fig. 1, Plate XXXVIII.) discovered by Mr. 

 Merry close to the stone implement, broken longitudinally, approx 

 imately in half. 



It appears certain that, in the case of the great majority of the 

 specimens, the bones were not broken by human beings with the 

 object of getting at the marrow, and we must therefore seek for some 

 other explanation of the way in which they have been fractured. 



Many of the bones give no clue at all as to how they were 

 broken, but, on the other hand, there are, on certain of them, 

 marks of such a nature that we think they could only have been 

 made by the teeth of carnivorous animals ; and this has led 

 to the most serious doubts being entertained as to the human 

 origin of any of the cuts or marks on the bones. 



Mr. C. W. De Vis (6), in his paper, "On Tooth-marked Bones 

 of Extinct Animals," says, "' About five per cent, of some hun- 

 dreds of bones from the Darling Downs awaiting examination, 

 are pitted, scored, cracked, chopped and crushed by the 

 teeth. They have in fragments passed with the faeces through 

 the intestines of bone-eating beasts of prey. Fully eighty per 

 cent, of the remainder tell, in this splintered fragmentary con- 

 dition, the same tale of violence." 



8 



