20 STUDIES IN TASMANIAN MAMMALS, LIVING AND EXTINCT, 



In 1845 Professor Owen received from Leichhardt and 

 Boyd the mandibular ramus of a young Nototherium, 

 showing the germ of an inrisor f 5 ) together with other 

 specimens. The inclusion of the incisive tusks necessi- 

 tated a revision of the genus. This was the first emenda- 

 tion of the type. 



In 1856 the first skull was discovered that could be 

 relegated to this genus ; it came from the Darling Downs, 

 and was minus the mandible. Mr. W. S. Macleay, of the 

 Australian Museum, named this skull Zygomaturus 

 trilobus, in a popular report of the discovery contributed 

 to the local press during August, 1857. 



Professor Owen protested against the new classifica- 

 tion, and eventually a cast of the skull and photographs, 

 giving details, reached him. The cast came later than 

 the photographs, so that we can omit the reoort upon the 

 former, and bring the matter down to 15th June, 1871, 

 when Professor Owen's real work upon the cast was read 

 before the Zoological Society, constituting Part V. of his 

 series upon the Fossil Mammals of Australia. In this 

 monograph he recapitulated all the published facts, 

 claimed that the skull from which the cast was made 

 was that of Nototherium mitchelli, and that, ipso facto, 

 Zygomaturus trilobus was eliminated. As a consequence, 

 the latter designation was allowed to lapse until Mr. C. 

 W. De Vis, M.A., of Queensland, elevated it to the 

 rank of a genus. De Vis' work in this connection will be 

 ccnsidercd^later. In the year 1877. Owen published his 

 paper on the Extinct Fossil Mammals of Australia in two 

 quarto volumes, adding some notes to the genus Noto- 

 therium, and giving a woodcut of a humerus (PI. 

 CXXVIL), which he felt justified in relegating to this 

 genus. The humerus really had nothing whatever to do with 

 the genus Nototherium, but its resemblance to the same 

 bone in Phascolomys, served to link it to the Phasco- 

 lomyidas in all classifications from that day until 1910, 

 when the real humerus was discovered in Tasmania < 6 ), 

 together with the rest of a skeleton (N . tasmanicum), 

 thus settling the matter at rest once and for all. One 

 effect of this incorrect relegation was that any robust 

 Nototherian humeri that were found were naturally rele- 

 gated to Diorotodon minor, a species founded by Pro- 

 fessor Huxley in 1862 ( 7 ). The late Dr. Stirling, F.R.S., 

 of South Australia, was a strong supporter of Huxley s 

 species, D. minor, but, with the coming to light of the 

 true Nototherian humerus, felt the wisdom of going 

 through the South Australian fossil humeri provisionally 

 related to that species, but his attention being fully 



