BY FKITZ NOETLING, M.A., PH.D. 133 



of which these beds wex'e declared to be Pliocene is not very 

 convincing. On the whole, I do not think it very probable 

 that these giants lived all through the Pliocene, the Pleis- 

 tocene, and the late post-glacial epoch, up to times which, 

 according to the European standard, might be termed prse- 

 historical. I have come to the conclusion that the gigantic 

 mai'supials, in particular Diprotodon and Nototherium, 

 existed during the cold Pleistocene period, when enorm- 

 ous glaciers covered a large portion of Tasmania and the 

 Australian mountains. The giant marsupials were not 

 exactly Arctic animals, but they preferred a cool, pluviose 

 climate to a warm and dry one. When with the general 

 rise of temperature the glaciers melted away the giant mar- 

 supials probably followed the receding glaciers, and they 

 kept longest in those parts where the glaciers remained for 

 the longest time, viz., in Tasmania. With the complete 

 disappeai'ance of the glaciers, the giant marsupials also 

 became extinct. 



It is noteworthy that Jack and Etheridge hold some- 

 what similar views. They assume that the changes of cli- 

 mate which followed the subsidence of the land were suffi- 

 ciently great to have a disastrous effect on the now extinct 

 fauna (H). It matters very little whether we attribute the 

 changes of the climate to the disappearance of the glaciers 

 or the subsidence of the land, which latter, in my opinion, 

 took place in post-glacial times. Messrs. Jack and Ether- 

 idge, as well as myself, concur in the view that the extinc- 

 tion of the giant marsupials was the result of climatic 

 changes ; only that I go a little further, and assume that 

 the gigantic marsupials were the representatives of the 

 glacial period in Australia, in the same way as Rhinoceros 

 tychorhini (the woolly Rhino) and Elephas primigenius 

 (the mammoth) characterised the pleistocene glacial period 

 in Europe. 



(11) L.C. pag. 609. 



