IV. 



Some Salient Points in the Study of Mammals 



during 1891. 



THE selection of certain points for special notice in the zoological 

 work of any particular year is always a somewhat invidious task, 

 and nowhere is it more so than in the case of mammals. The past 

 year will, however, long be marked as a memorable one in the annals 

 of the Mammalia, as being the one in which our first definite informa- 

 tion was acquired as to the structure and affinities of the Marsupial 

 Mole {Notoryctcs) from the deserts of Central South Australia, the 

 existence of which was first recorded in 1888. Such an important 

 addition to the living Mammalian fauna of the world has not occurred 

 since the publication, in i860, of M. Du Chaillu's description of the 

 West African insectivorous mammal Potamogah ; both that genus and 

 Noioryctes being the sole representatives of special families in the 

 groups to which they respectively belong. Important as the 

 addition of the Marsupial Mole to the ranks of the mammals 

 undoubtedly is, yet the creature is not of the supreme interest Avhicli 

 the preliminary notices, published in 1S88, led some naturalists to 

 think might prove to be the case. There were, indeed, suggestions 

 in those notices of affinity with some of the small fossil mammals 

 of the Jurassic rocks of Europe ; and it was even doubtful whether 

 the creature would turn out to be a Monotreme or a Marsupial, or 

 something between the two. 



Dr. Stirling's account ' of Notoryctcs leads us, however, to believe 

 that the animal must certainly be included in the Marsupial order ; 

 where it would seem that it should form the representative of a 

 distinct family in the so-called Polyprotodont sub-order of that group, 

 or that which includes the Opossums, Bandicoots, Dasyures, Thy- 

 lacine, &c. In the original description, beyond the bare reference of 

 the animal to the Marsupials, nothing definite is said as to its exact 

 serial position; but this deficiency has been made good by Mr. J. D. 

 Ogilby, who, in his "Hand-List of Australian Mammals," - places 

 the family Notoryctidse among the Polyprotodonts. It is true, indeed, 

 that the last-named writer considers that in the INIarsupial Mole " we 



1 Pioc. Zool. Soc, 1891, pp. 327-329; and Trans. Royal Soc. S. Australia, 1S91, 

 pp. 154-187, pis. ii.-ix. 



2 8vo, Sydney, i8gi. 



