BY 9 @..We. DEF MIS; MA. 123 
may have been pleasant to take, and the observations fol- 
lowing may suffice to persuade the osteologist that a record 
of the differences between the fossil and the femurs of the 
Phalangistide and Peramelide is not necessary. It is 
enough to say that, while as a whole the fossil femur stands 
alone, it comprehends largely, but to an unequal extent, 
elements of the two families left, the carnivorous dasyures 
and rhizophagous wombats. From among the dasyuride 
we may dismiss Thylacinus without hesitation, and with a 
little reserve Dasyurus itself as too widely differentiated. 
Sarcophilus on the one hand and Phascolomys on the other 
now remain as the limits of the comparison, to be instituted 
with the aid of brief description. 
The bone is in general form unlike any recent femur 
known to the writer, inasmuch as it tapers gradually from 
the proximal end to the distal third-fifth, and is in its 
proximal moiety rather strongly curved, both inwards and 
backwards. A result of the inward curve is that the angle 
made by the axis of the shaft with that of the head and 
neck is considerably less than obtains in Sarcophilus and 
Phascolomys, and to the same degree approaches the Bags 
normal in the kangaroo. 
The articulating surface of the head is, from the inner 
front point of view, more than hemispherical, a feature dis- 
tinguishing Sarcophilus from Phascolomys. Its upper sur- 
face is more widely and distinctly flattened than it is in the 
latter genus, and the circular area produced is more central. 
There is therefore no pit for a ligamentum teres near the 
posterior part of the periphery, as in Sarcophilus. The 
curve of the neck, as it passes into the great trochanter, is 
uninterrupted either by the deep groove of constriction 
seen in Sarcophilus or by the shallowed channel of Phas- 
colomys. The prominent lesser trochanter is the termina- 
tion of a broad elevated ridge running upwards and 
outwards to the top of the post-trochanterian fossa. This 
ridge is in the wombat (P. platyrhinus) represented by lineze 
aspere traversing a low turgidity of the bone, and is in its 
median half altogether wanting in Sarcophilus. The ridge, 
descending from the lesser trochanter, contracts in thickness 
gradually, not immediately as in the recent genera, curves 
suddenly outwards, and subsides on the middle of the 
