﻿26o ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



although of proportionately much larger dimensions, and biting 

 against a similar tooth in the upper jaw. The molar teeth 

 (one pair in the upper, and two in the lower jaw) which 

 succeed these large premolars posteriorly are small, rounded, 

 and of no functional importance. 



The remarkably trenchant form of the last premolar tooth 

 in this strange extinct representative of the Phalangers not un- 

 naturally led to the conclusion that the creature was a carnivore 

 preying upon the large herbivorous Marsupials which were its 

 contemporaries ; and it accordingly received the specific name 

 which it still bears. Fuller acquaintance with its anatomy re- 

 vealed, however, its intimate kinship with the Phalangers ; and 

 when this was fully realised, it was argued that Thylacoleo must 

 be purely a vegetable eater. Many of the Cuscuses are, how- 

 ever, partly carvivorous in their habits ; and in our own 

 opinion it seems probable that in this respect their gigantic 

 extinct cousin resembled them to a certain extent. Not that 

 we mean to assert that Thylacoleo was a creature which preyed 

 on large Mammals, since to attack and overcome such its teeth 

 are clearly not suited ; but we do think that it may have pro- 

 bably killed and devoured the smaller Mammals, as well as 

 such birds as it was able to catch. To our thinking, the huge 

 last premolar tooth does not appear one well adapted for an 

 exclusively vegetable diet, unless indeed it were employed to 

 slice up large bulbous roots after the manner of a turnip-cutting 

 machine. Even, however, if roots of this nature existed in 

 Australia during the time that Thylacoleo flourished, we fail to 

 see how the creature could have introduced them whole into 

 its mouth and sliced them up in this manner. That there 

 must have been some special use for such extraordinary teeth 

 is pretty clear, as otherwise they would never have been likely 

 to have been evolved ; but it still remains for the investigator 

 of the history of the animals of a past epoch to declare what 



