BY H. II. 800TT AND CLIVB E. LORD. Ill 



<lilation of the skull walls to provide extra air cells, to 

 deaden shock and to combine lightness with strength. 

 Starting (in the limbs) with pentadactyle hands and feet, 

 and the primitive character of a fibula articulating direct- 

 ly with the calcancum, they changed to a condition that 

 was rapidly reducing the number of toes (as in the Rhino- 

 ceroses) and the fibula was slowly l< articular grip 

 of the calcaneum. In the Leptocerathine group it had 

 absolutely done so, and in tiie Megacerathim group the 

 articular ■ ly reduced. The ear was being 

 evolved to suit the new conditions of life, and in total 

 iv li'i had i ached a rhinoceros stal i of development, hut. 

 the primitive I available to a marsupial animal 

 being different from that which obtained in the Eocene 

 Ungulate?, the method of elaboration was quite distinctive, 

 as duly noted above. As no Diprotoduiis havi ;;■- yel 



found in Tasmania wi havt i word, 



attempted to . upon their relationship to the two 



groups we have had undea r vi w Our persona] views 

 are therefore une: thi pi al Stud uts of 



Palaeontology need not travel to the America 



ad remai oimals that closely simulated the 



odactyle Ungulates, since th in Australia, 



and Tasmania, the evidence of < n id with 



a primitive marsupial habit, and while unfolding that 



Linjgly interesting zoological forn ol them 



embraced, pari passu, the evolutionary Mend that pro- 

 duced the Rhinoceros and Tapir stirps in other parts of 

 the world. America is said to have elaborated 

 groups of, more or less. Rhinoceros-like animals : it re- 

 mains for the futu] what number actually i i 

 in the Australian zoo-geographical provinc -. Professor' 

 Owen first glimpsed tie i [bracing evolution- 

 ary trend, in the year 1870. Professor Watson dii < tly ecs 

 tended the idea when viewing the Tasmanian Nototherian 

 remains in 1914. Early the next year, Mr. L. Glauert, 

 of the Perth Museum, in Western Australia, expressed a 

 tentative opinion upon th<- subject, after four months* 

 work upon the fossil boles of the Mam ninth Cave, but 

 felt unable to state exactly how far the rh. trend 

 had advanced, his exact opinion (as reported at the time) 

 being thai tie 'Notntherium was a gigantic Tapir, or 

 'Rhinoceros-like animal." In 1915, also, H. H. Scott re- 

 viewed the evidem. yield d by a study of a Leptocerathine 

 Nototherium (X. tasmanicum) in the light of its being pure- 

 ly a Tapir-like animal, but abandoned the view in 

 March, 1917, in favour of that advanced by Professor 

 Watson (vide Brochure No. G, Launceston Museum Series). 



