88 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



were not invariably established in the earlier and more vigorous 

 age of Macropod development. The palate, so far as can be 

 gathered from its crushed remains, was nearly or quite entire. 

 The remains of vertebrae and the fragment of the pelvis left to 

 us, unfortunately, are too characterless to illustrate the axial 

 skeleton, but in the appendicular bones there is much to interest 

 us ; more especially in those of the hind-quarters. Most of its 

 members as the femur, tibia and fibula, would have been, and 

 indeed have been, by virtue of their size, homologized with the 

 teeth of the most gigantic of the Macropods, Sthemirus goliah, 

 Clearly, the proportions of modern kangaroos form a very unsafe 

 basis for specific osteology to work upon. The right femur is 

 represented by the condylar end only. The remains of that of 

 the left side include the head, the upper part of the shaft and the 

 distal extremity. Placed alongside a complete bone, selected on 

 account of its affording a fairly exact replica of the remains under 

 examination, the latter indicate a total length of 375 mm. .\part 

 from size, the most important difference between the femur of 

 M. fimnus :xru\ M. }^tga?iteits {io*ii nun. in length), is seen in the 

 greater proportional depth of the inner condyle which is there- 

 fore much more nearly of the same size as the outer one. The 

 effect of this would be to turn the animals toes outward, and thus 

 enable it to take a broader base of support and more efficient 

 grasp of the ground. The tibia, also of the left side, has also for 

 its relics the head, part of the shaft and the lower articular 

 extremity, the last cemented to the astragalus. Its head, in 

 breadth, corresponding to the condyles of the femur, agrees in 

 dimensions with that of a young bone in the Queensland collec- 

 tion, which, though it has lost its epiphysis, measures 700 mm. in 

 length, and with its epipysis, would reach to 720 mm., a length 

 which, other parts being proportionate, would indicate a bulk of 

 carcass five or six times greater than that of an average example 

 of the Great Kangaroo, M. giganteus. In contrast with this great 

 development of the hinder parts, it is interesting to remember 

 that the size of the head was comparatively small. On comparing 

 the lengths of the lower series of cheek-teeth in the two animals, 

 M. fautms would, on this base of calculation, appear to be not 

 moi-e than twice the size of M. giganieus. That its fore-quarters 

 were disproportionately light, even for a kangaroo, appears further 



