74 REPORT— 1842. 



Stonesfiekl, associated with the Amphitherium described in a preceding sec- 

 tion of the Report. 



In the Geological Transactions, vol. vi., second series, p. 58, will be found 

 the description and figures of the most complete of these fossils, and the ob- 

 servations in proof of the marsupial affinities of the Phascolotfierium. It has 

 four true molars, and three, or, at most, four false molars — one canine and 

 three incisors in each ramus of the lower jaw. In the proportionate size of 

 the molars, especially the small size of the hindmost tooth, the Phascolothc- 

 rium resembles the Myrmecobius more than the Opossum or Dasyure, but it 

 more resembles the Thylacim in the shape of the grinding teeth. It likewise 

 agrees with the Thi/lacine in the low position of the condyle, and in the lon- 

 gitudinal extent of the inwardly inflected angle of the jaw. The close ap- 

 proximation of the Phascolotherium to marsupial genera, now confined to 

 New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, leads us to reflect upon the in- 

 teresting correspondence between other organic remains of the British oolite 

 and the existing forms now confined to the Australian continent and neigh- 

 bouring seas. Here, for example, the Cestracion swims which has given the 

 key to the nature of the " palates " from the oolite, now known as teeth of 

 congeneric gigantic forms of cartilaginous fishes. Living Trigonice and Te- 

 rebratulce abound in the Australian seas, and afford food to the Cestracion, 

 as their extinct analogues probably did to the Aciodi, Psammodi, &c. of the 

 oolitic period. Araucariae and cycadeous plants flourish on the Australian 

 continent, where marsupial quadrupeds abound, and thus appear to complete 

 a picture of an ancient condition of the earth's surface, which has been su- 

 perseded in our hemisphere by other strata and a higher type of mam- 

 miferous organization. 



Addendum to Report on British Fossil Mammalia, Part I. 



Since the printing of the first part of the above Report, I have, in the course 

 of an investigation of the mammalian fossils of Essex and Norfolk, examined 

 the skeleton " combining a dentition like that of the ruminants, with, appa- 

 rently, a divided metacarpus and metatarsus," and alluded to at p. 57, in re- 

 ference to the stratum containing the remains of a mole. 



The bones placed in the position of the metacarpus and metatarsus, and 

 so described in Mr. Green's work*, do not belong to the same animal as the 

 jaws and the rest of the skeleton : one of the so-called metatarsals is the tibia 

 of a quadruped about the size of a hare, the other is a shorter bone, with a 

 wide medullary cavity, like the shall of a femur. The two metacarpals are 

 the un-united divisions of the metatarsal, or cannon-bone, of a very young 

 or foetal ruminant. A portion of the vertebra dentata, and the distal epiphy- 

 sis of the right radius of the animal to which the chief part of the skeleton 

 belongs, are placed in the position of the tarsal bones ; the distal end of the 

 right femur is placed above the tarsus as the distal end of the left tibia : in 

 short, the parts of the skeleton in question have been artificially and arbi- 

 trarily fixed in the position in Avhich they are represented in the plate in Mr. 

 Green's work, and in the drawing originally submitted to me. 



The portion of the skull, jaws and teeth, vertebrae, pelvis, scapula, hume- 

 rus, radius and ulna, femur and tibia, are parts of the same individual, which 

 is a ruminant closely resembling the Roe-deer (Cervics capreolus), probably 

 female, arrived at full size, as the dentition proves, but immature, as the state 

 of the epiphyses shows. The bones have lost much of their animal matter, 

 and are of a brown colour. 



* Geol. of Bacton, p. 18. 



