PREFACE. 



In this seventh Decade, the first plate illustrates the remains 

 proving the existence of the recent Dingo, or Native Dog, in the 

 Pliocene and Pleistocene Tertiary periods of geology, probably long 

 before the advent of man, and contemporary with the extinct 

 genera of gigantic marsupials, the Diprotodon, Nototherium, and 

 Thylacoleo ; while, as the figures show, there is no departure from 

 the structure of the living examples. 



It also includes figures of the lower jaw of the Tasmanian 

 Devil, found with the above-named genera. 



The two following plates illustrate such perfect skulls and teeth 

 of the fossil Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus ur sinus) as can leave 

 no doubt of the perfect identity of these remains, so common in the 

 ossiferous caves and in the Pleistocene and Pliocene clays and 

 sands of Victoria, with the species to which I refer them a species 

 still living in Tasmania in abundance, but which has never been 

 seen or heard of in the living state on this continent ; in which these 

 remains prove that it formerly abounded in the most recent 

 Tertiary times. 



The five next plates make known several new species of extinct 

 Echinodermata, or Sea Urchins, strengthening my previous refer- 

 ences of the strata in which they are found to the Miocene Tertiary 

 period, by their dissimilarity to the forms now living in Victorian 

 seas. These fossils, enabling the observer to distinguish the older 

 Tertiaries, in which gold drifts are not known to occur, from the 

 Pliocene and more recent deposits, in which they are habitually 

 worked, are of great practical importance in the attempts to test the 

 theory of the non-auriferous character of the Miocene beds, when 

 prospecting for new leads. 



The ninth plate shows the occurrence in the Miocene Tertiary 

 quarries near Geelong of teeth of the great Two-toothed Whales of 

 the genus Ziphias, related to those Prof. Owen has made known in 

 the Crag formation of similar age in the S.E. of England. 



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