EXTINCT ANIMALS 



rapidly and has rapidly risen again and is still 

 rising at the rate of two feet a year in some parts, 

 within the late Pleistocene period. Possibly 

 the rocks and high lands where the Mylodon 

 cavern occurs formed an island during the 

 submergence where a number of individuals of 

 the earlier fauna took refuge and survived until 

 the re-elevation of the land, and so lived on in 

 the present condition of the land surface until 

 fifty or a hundred years ago. Possibly, though 

 by no means probably, the Mylodon is still 

 Uving in similar caverns in this region, as yet 

 unvisited by man. 



In Austraha, the land of the marsupials or 

 pouched mammals, the bones of gigantic crea- 

 tures have been found belonging to that 

 peculiar tribe. Giant kangaroos, twice as tall 

 as any hving kangaroos, are thus known. But 

 there are also remains of some extraordinary 

 animals, like wombats and koalas, only as big 

 as the largest rhinoceros or a small elephant. 

 One of these is the Diprotodon of Owen, known 

 to him by its skull and the rest of the 

 skeleton, excepting the feet. The skull is dra^vn 

 in Fig. 132 with a human skull beside it to give 

 a scale. In Fig. 133 is given Owen's restoration 



184 



