306 



PROF. OWEN ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF THE MARSUPIALIA. 



The mere record of species, irrespective of their relations, as it is the fundamental, so 

 it is the lowest labour in zoological science. The present addition to the genus Phasco- 

 lomys gives us a better insight into its typical characters, by showing the extent and 

 kind of the variations in the skulls of two existing species. The geographical relations 

 of the Phascolomys Vonibatus and Phase, latifrons will be interesting and suggestive if 

 further researches should prove the first to be restricted to the island of Tasmania, and 

 the second to the continent of Australia. With regard to other Australasian species of 

 Marsupiaha, the number that is common to Australia and the neighbouring island of 

 Tasmania is remarkably small, as will be seen by the preceding table. 



With regard to the extensive tribe Poephaga {Macropodida and Hypsiprymnides) , 

 certain subgeneric groups have particular localizations ; thus Potorous, Heteropvs, and 

 Hypsiprymnus proper, are peculiar to continental Australia. Certain well-defined genera 

 are also restricted in their present geographical range, as shown in the following 

 Table :— 



GENERA OF MARSUPIALIA 



But it was not always so : fossil remains of extinct species of Thylacinus and Sarco- 

 philus have been found in the ossiferous caverns of Australia. The extinct continental 

 species of Phascolomys, which I have called Phase. Mitchelli, much more closely resem- 

 bles the Tasmanian Phase. Vombatus, in the form and degree of curvature of the upper 

 incisors, than it does the Phase, latifrons. I have recently obtained evidence from the 

 post-pliocene deposits of the district of Melbourne, through the kindness of my friend 

 Dr. Hobson, of an extinct Wombat, a true Phascolomys, at least four times as large as 

 either of the known existing species. 



Fossil remains of more gigantic extinct forms of Marsupialia (Diprotodon, Nototherium) 

 are described in my ' Odontography* ' and ' Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in the Mu- 

 seum of the Royal College of Surgeonsf.' These genera have hitherto been found only 

 in Australia ; they combined some characters now peculiar to Macropus and Phascolomys. 



* Vol. i. 4to, p. 394. 



t 4to, 1845, pp. 291—323, pi. 6—10. 



