84 Proceedings of tJie Royal Society of Victoria. 



carnifex, Owen, a confirmed bone-eater, with enormous shearing- 

 teeth. With the ossifragous capability of Tliylacoleo we are not 

 at this day unfamiliar, and experience makes it quite safe to say 

 that the bone was not cut by the molars of that animal. 



Powerful as its jaws undoubtedly were, they have left no 

 evidence that they were able to cut through dense bone to any 

 considerable depth, certainly not to the depth of 3 mm., as in 

 the case before us. They chopped the surface (generally on 

 opposite sides) but slightly, to a depth of a millimeter or so at 

 the most, and by the impact of the blow or by continued effort 

 crushed the bone in twain. The form of the incision is in itself 

 sufficient proof that it was not the work of Thylacoleo. Its 

 outer or upper edge, crossing the rib obliquely, is irregularly 

 undulating, its sui'face inclined from without inward at an open 

 angle, shows, under a certain incidence of light, three shallow, 

 unequal undulations, or rather subconchoidal depressions which 

 could only have been sculptured by an instrument having a 

 strong bevel above its cutting edge. The surface of wear of the 

 molars of Thylacoleo, which so frequently leaves its impression 

 on the substance of long bones subjected to their action, is level, 

 except that occasionally it is more or less distinctly bevelled off 

 at its posterior end ; the cut effected by it across the shaft of a 

 bone is therefore a straight edged and flat-surfaced notch. Of 

 producing one with an edge which is even slightly scalloped and 

 with a broad oblique surface of conuhoidal facets, it is altogetlier 

 incapable. We have, therefore, to fall back on an unknown 

 user of an instrument adequate to the purpose, and this could 

 not well have been any other than man. If now we are pre- 

 pared to accept the view that this l)one was wrought by human 

 hands, and for the nonce assume the genuineness of the fossil, we 

 shall have little ditficulty in understanding how and why it 

 received its shape. We may infer that the upper nick was first 

 made ; afterwards, and probably with the same instrument — a 

 small, sharp stone tomahawk — the lower nick ; the bone then 

 broken between them, and the lower end ground with a bevel in 

 order to obtain an edge which should l)e curved, moderately 

 sharp, and rather rugose. 8uch would be an edge suitable for a 

 scraper for the removal of flesh and fat from the inner side of 

 skins and rendering the cleansed skins sujiple for use. Holding 



