THE TASMANIAN DEVIL 215 



means secured ; for although the door of the trap 

 was grated with bars as thick as a lead pencil, this 

 iron-jawed terror sturdily wrenched them aside 

 almost doubling up the door and vanished ! The 

 blacksmith afterwards attemping to repair the 

 damage could not bend back the bars without the 

 aid of tools. An examination of the skull and 

 dentition of the present species at once explains 

 its biting powers. Somewhat flattened above, 

 the skull is expanded laterally ; the zygomatic arches 

 are strong and heavily ridged, and the lower jaw is 

 deeply hollowed, so that the powerful temporal and 

 masseter muscles have firm attachment to the bone. 

 The canine teeth are trenchant like those of true 

 carnivora, and even the molar teeth are sharpened 

 into cutting cusps. Few greater contrasts could be 

 found than the powerful biting machinery of the 

 Tasmanian devil and the weak herbivorous dentition 

 of the leaf-eating koala or native "bear" both 

 members of the same natural order the marsupials. 

 A Tasmanian devil was received in exchange at 

 the London Zoological Gardens on October 12, 

 1903, and a second specimen was deposited in the 

 collection on April 24, 1906. The writer carefully 

 examined both these individuals and took several 

 photographs, one of which is published in this 

 book. Regarding the soft parts during life, the 

 lachrymal caruncle (third eyelid) was well marked, 

 and of a red hue ; the ears inside and outside, the 



