EXTINCT WHALES AND WOMBATS 303 



with part of a thigh-bone and other fragments, was also received, 

 and Owen wrote : " The fossils which my friend has now trans- 

 mitted incontestably establish the former existence of a huge 

 proboscidian pachyderm in the Australian continent, referable 

 either to the genus Mastodon or Dinotherium (!)." 



Only a year later, however (1844), this prophecy proved to be 

 incorrect; and, within a short time, Sir E. Owen was able, not 

 merely to describe correctly most of the Diprotodon's skeleton, but 

 also to distinguish another allied genius, the Nototherium. The 

 feet alone remained unknown, and part of these were described as 

 the toes of that fabulous monster, the " Great horned Lizard of 

 Australia " ! 



In 1863 our late distinguished friend, Dr. George Bennett, wrote 

 from Sydney to Owen, saying that his son, then in Queensland, 

 had written home to say that he found a place where a whole 

 skeleton lay : the bones were immense ; the head, he said, had 

 been sent to Sydney some years previously (this may be the one 

 now in the Natural History Museum). Owen wrote to Sir Henry 

 Parkes, in 1867, suggesting that his administration should send 

 an exploring party to the limestone caves in Wellington Valley, 

 discovered in 1832, and from which fossil remains were brought 

 sufficient to show that the marsupial type of mammal formerly 

 prevailed in that country as it does now. Consequently, a vote 

 of two hundred pounds was passed, and a most valuable collection 

 of fossils obtained. 



The following passage, from a now historic paper by Sir E. 

 Owen, will serve to show with how great enthusiasm he pursued 

 his most fruitful researches in palaeontology. " Of no existing 

 animal," he says, " of which a passing glimpse, as it were, had 

 thus been caught, did I ever feel more eager to acquire fuller 

 knowledge than of this huge Marsupial. No chase can equal 



