EXTINCT WHALES AND WOMBATS 303 
with part of a thigh-bone and other fragments, was also received, 
and Owen wrote: “The fossils which my friend has now trans- 
mitted incontestably establish the former existence of a huge 
proboscidian pachyderm in the Australian continent, referable 
either to the genus Mastodon or Dinotherium (!).” 
Only a year later, however (1844), this prophecy proved to be 
incorrect ; and, within a short time, Sir R. Owen was able, not 
merely to describe correctly most of the Diprotodon’s skeleton, but 
also to distinguish another allied genius, the Nototherium. The 
feet alone remained unknown, and part of these were described as 
the toes of that fabulous monster, the “Great horned Lizard of 
Australia” ! 
In 1868 our late distinguished friend, Dr. George Bennett, wrote 
from Sydney to Owen, saying that his son, then in Queensland, 
had written home to say that he found a place where a whole 
skeleton lay: the bones were immense; the head, he said, had 
been sent to Sydney some years previously (this may be the one 
now in the Natural History Museum). Owen wrote to Sir Henry 
Parkes, in 1867, suggesting that his administration should send 
an exploring party to the limestone caves in Wellington Valley, 
discovered in 1832, and from which fossil remains were brought 
sufficient to show that the marsupial type of mammal formerly 
prevailed in that country as it does now. Consequently, a vote 
of two hundred pounds was passed, and a most valuable collection 
of fossils obtained. 
The following passage, from a now historic paper by Sir R. 
Owen, will serve to show with how great enthusiasm he pursued 
his most fruitful researches in paleontology. “Of no existing 
animal,” he says, “of which a passing glimpse, as it were, had 
thus been caught, did I ever feel more eager to acquire fuller 
knowledge than of this huge Marsupial. No chase can equal 
