BY ©} W:) DE! VIS) M:-A: 127 
We may sum up the whole by saying that sarcophiline 
affinities are dominant, phascolomine subordinate, macro- 
pine concomitant. 
There is but one post-tertiary mammal at, present known, 
to which, if carnivorous, such a femur could have belonged, 
a statement which, if true, raises a provisional assumption 
that it did belong to the animal in question, that is, Thy- 
lacoleo. The latter “if” is baseless to any one recalling 
mentally the several mammals discovered in the drift. 
That there may be another undiscovered, which will 
eventually put forward a better claim to ownership, goes 
without saying ; but if we can connect the unknown with the 
known, it is our duty to do so. The former “if” cannot 
be quite so curtly dismissed, since the carnivority of Thyla- 
coleo is (or has been) denied. Whatever arguments have 
been used against it, they seem, in the judgment of the 
writer, to be more than counterpoised by the simple fact 
that the animal had no efficient molars—a pair of shears on 
each side of the head, and practically no grinders, is hardly 
the equipment of a herbivorous animal, dependent for its 
existence on the thorough mastication and salivation of the 
grass, leaves, twigs, or roots which it crops or gnaws. On 
the other hand, grinders are not necessary to the absolute 
carnivore, whose food requires but the scantiest preparation 
for the solvent action of the digestive organs. The contro- 
versy is not, of course, affected by the present fossil, for it 
is only they who believe in the carnivorous habits of the 
“ Marsupial Lion”? who may be asked to admit it as con- 
firmatory evidence—only they can grant that it could 
belong to Thylacoleo. At the same time, their opponents 
may fairly be invited to consider whether the future dis- 
covery of the carnivore to which this femur belonged, or 
the carnivority of the beast to which, as a carnivore, it might 
have belonged, is the more probable. Always supposing 
Thylacoleo to have been a carnivore, the reasons for putting 
forward the present fossil as its femur are, its suitable size 
and decidedly carnivorous affinities. The most threatening 
objection to such determination seems to be that the den- 
tition of Thylacoleo is highly specialised, while the sup- 
posed femur is so generalised as to commingle the 
characters of at least three distinct families. But if Thyla- 
