100 



A NOTE ON "PALORCHESTES,'' AS A TASMANIAN 

 PLEISTOCENE GENUS. 



By H. H. Scott, Curator of Launccston Museum. 



(Received 10th October. Read 15th November. 



Issued separately 31st December, 1915.) 

 Plate IX. 



Through . the kindness of my friend, Mr. K. M. Har- 

 risson, of Smithton, I received on September 18th, 1915, 

 a small packet of pleistocene fossils from the Mowbray 

 Swamp. These included some Nototherian teeth, previ- 

 ously obtained, and a kangaroo's upper jaw, recently dis- 

 covered by Mr. T. Edwards. As this latter adds a new 

 genus to Tasmanian Palaeontology, I herewith record the 

 fact of its occurrence. (See Plate IX.) 



The specimen is generically typical of Prof. Owen's 

 genus "Palorchestes," a gigantic kangaroo, computed to 

 have had a skull over sixteen inches long, or exactly double 

 the size of the existing "Forester." 



Viewed palate-wise, as photographed, it is easy to com- 

 pare it with the similar portion of Prof. Owen's engraving 

 —Fig. I., plate LXXXII. of the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, Part IX., 1873 — with which it agrees in size and 

 structure.* The specimen includes premolar No. 4, molar 

 No. 1, molar No. 2, and the anterior moiety of molar No. 3. 

 The fragment extends as far in advance of the premolar 

 as the small palatal foramen marked 21' in Owen's engrav- 

 ing, and backwards it just embraces the maxillary serra- 

 tures of the maxillo-palatine suture. In width, it about 

 reaches the middle line of the palate, and therefore ends 

 at the mesial maxillary suture. The teeth in our speci- 

 men are much better preserved than those used by Prof. 

 Owen for the purposes of his illustration — which latter 

 now constitute specimen No. 46316 of the British Museum 

 extinct marsupial series — indeed, so fine are these teeth in 

 point of preservation that I much doubt if any teeth of 

 Palorchestes hitherto recovered could equal them. The 

 photograph has been more especially arranged to depict tin- 

 working surfaces of these cheek teeth, and the picture is 

 sufficiently good to make evident their generic departures 



•My thanks are <lue to Prof. t. T. Flynn, P.L.S., of the Tumanian Timer 

 sitv, feir tin- opportunity of consulting this Paper, which is not in our Museum 

 Library. 



