-_>S THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



high in the air to a perpendicular branch, the animal may be readily mistaken for a 

 big bunch of moss or for one of those large gall-like excrescences of frequent 

 occurrence on many species of Eucalypti. It may be suitably recorded here that the 

 fossil remains of several extinct forms apparently allied to the Koala, but of huge 

 comparative proportions, have been unearthed from the Australian tertiary deposits. 

 Koalemus is one of these, as also Thylacaleo, formerly interpreted by Owen to be a 

 large, carnivorous mammal, which in accordance with its presumptive habits must have 

 represented " one of the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts." The further 

 light of more recent investigation has, however, conclusively demonstrated that this Bogie 

 Carnivor was a peaceable vegetarian marsupial, uniting in its ponderous ungainly carcase 

 the combined structural characteristics of both the Phalangers and Kangaroos. 



A still larger extinct form, which also appears to have possessed the structural 

 characters of both the Phalangistidje and the Macropodidae, is the huge Diprotodon 

 australis of Owen, the remains of which have been found in abundance in the 

 tertiary deposits of both Queensland and South Australia, and are most richly 

 represented in the fossil collections of the Adelaide Museum. As shown by its 

 skeletal elements the body of this, the largest of recorded marsupials, must have 

 equalled that of a Rhinoceros, while its habits were probably closely allied to those 

 of Megatherium and others of the extinct giant sloths of South America. 



The exploration of the arid tracts of Central Australia has within the past 

 few years been rewarded by the discovery of an entirely new and highly interesting 

 modification of Marsupial morphology. This mammalian novelty is represented by a 

 singular little creature possessing the burrowing habits and much of the co-ordinated 

 structure of the European mole. Upon it the scientific name of Notoryctes 

 typhlops has been conferred by its original describer, Dr. E. C. Stirling, F.E.S., the 

 accomplished lecturer on Physiology at the Adelaide University and the Hon. Director 

 of the South Australian Museum. Excellent illustrations and copious descriptions of 

 the general aspect, habits and structural features of this mole-like Marsupial, or 

 Pouched Mole as it is popularly designated, are contributed by Dr. Stirling to the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia for the year 1891, whence 

 the accompanying figures and descriptive details are, with cordial acknowledgments, 

 appropriately reproduced. The total length of the little animal scarcely exceeds 

 five inches, and it is covered by a long soft lustrous fur of a generally light fawn 

 colour, but which inclines in some parts to a glistening golden hue, and in others to 

 a considerably lighter silvery tint. As shown in the illustrations overleaf there 



