HISTORY OF THE MARSUPIALIA 



637 



epicondylar foramen. ]Prothylacynus and ^Borhymia were the 

 largest of the Santa Cruz flesh-eaters and no doubt pursued the 

 smaller and more defenceless ungulates, but were hardly 



Fig. 298. 



■Skull of ^Borhycena, Santa Cruz. (After Sinclair, Reports Princeton 

 University Expeditions to Patagonia, Vol. IV.) 



sufficiently powerful to attack successfully the larger hoofed 

 animals, which were probably well able to defend them- 

 selves. 



Associated with these larger predaceous marsupials were 

 several much smaller kinds, ranging in size from a fox to a 

 weasel, which must have preyed upon the abundant rodents 

 and other small 

 mammals and birds. 

 One of these {]Avi- 

 phiproviverra) had 

 an opposable hallux, 



somewhat as in the fiq, 299.— Skuii of small predaceous mar.supiai(t Amp/it- 

 opossums and was proviverra rnanzamana), showing the punctured wound 

 , . Ill from a bite. Princeton University Museum. 



thereiore probably 



arboreal. An interesting specimen in the museum of Princeton 

 University illustrates the pugnacity of these small creatures; 

 it is a skull in which the left upper canine was completely 



