394 



PALEONTOLOGY 



roos, and kangaroos — some of the latter {Macropus Atlas, M. 

 Titan) being of great stature. A single tooth, in the same 

 collection of fossils, gave the first indication of the former 

 existence of a type of the marsupial group, which represented 

 the Pachyderms of the larger continents, and which seems 

 now to have disappeared from the face of the Australian 

 earth. Of the great quadruped, so indicated under the name 

 Diprotodon in 1838, successive subsequent acquisitions have 

 established the true marsupial character and the near affini- 

 ties of the genus to the kangaroo [Macropus), but with an 

 osculant relationship with the herbivorous wombat. The 



Fig. 139. 

 Skull, gigantic Pachydermoid Kangaroo {Diprotodon Australis) Pleistocene 



Australia. 



entire skull of the Diprotodon Australis (tig. 139) has lately 

 been acquired by the British Museum, showing in situ 

 the tooth (i) on which the genus was founded. This skull 

 measures 3 feet in length ; that of a man is inserted in the 

 cut to exemplify the huge dimensions of the primeval 

 kangaroo. Like the contemporary gigantic sloth in South 

 America, the Diprotodon of Australia, while retaining the 

 dental formula of its living homologue, shows great and 



