122 LIFE OF FLOWER 



elusive on the subject. Unless Owen's figures are 

 altogether unreliable, the lower incisors are quite unlike 

 those of the herbivorous diprotodonts. In such typical 

 forms as the wombat, the koala, the kangaroo, and the 

 phalanger, though there are different modifications of 

 the arrangement, we have the lower incisors meeting 

 the upper, and forming with them an instrument for 

 biting through a moderately tough, fibrous tissue, and 

 even in the very small diprotodonts, so far as I am 

 aware, the lower incisors always meet and work against 

 the upper. But in Thylacoleo we have powerful pointed 

 incisors which do not meet, but overlap. Though 

 technically incisors, they are not intended to incise, but 

 to pierce and tear. Such powerful pointed and over- 

 lapping teeth, though easily explained on the theory 

 that they were intended to kill and tear animal prey, 

 were never surely provided merely to pierce succulent 

 vegetables or ripe fruit. It might of course be argued 

 that the incisors were used as weapons of defence, as 

 apparently are the canines in the baboon ; but against 

 this idea is the objection that the incisors were put to 

 some use which wore them down and blunted them 

 more rapidly than would be the case if they were 

 chiefly used on the rare occasions when the animal had 

 to defend itself; and furthermore, were such the case, the 

 temporals would not require to be greatly developed. 



" There is thus, in my opinion, no other conclusion 

 tenable than that Thylacoleo was a purely carnivorous 

 animal, and one which would be quite able to, and pro- 

 bably did, kill animals as large as or larger than itself." 



This opinion as to the carnivorous habits of Thylacoleo 

 is approved by Mr. B. A. Bensley, who has specially 



