276 



NA TURE 



[January 18, 1900 



The lake, known as Lake Mulligan until, at Prof. 

 Stirling's instigation, its name was changed (as he 

 himself informed us at the Zoological Society, on the 

 occasion of his last home-coming), presents conditions 

 wholly unfavourable for successful preservation of organic 

 remains, owing to the action of a saline infiltration. The 

 skeletons of the monsters which there lie are found 

 some four feet beneath the surface mud, spread out in 

 positions indicative of " death in situ after being bogged," 

 the creatures having crowded down, as the area available 

 for food and water gradually diminished under the in- 

 fluence of climatic change — the whole looking, as Prof. 

 Stirling has aptly remarked, "a veritable necropolis of 

 gigantic extinct marsupials and birds which have 

 apparently died where they lie." 



The name Diprotodon was applied by Owen in 1838 

 to a piece of a jaw, discovered in the Wellington Caves, 

 and a considerable accumulation of material from various 

 localities enabled him nearly forty years later (1877), in 

 his " Fossil Mammals of Australia," to diagnose the 

 genus and more fully describe the greater part of its 

 skeleton and dentition, with the e.xception of the manus 

 and pes. He admitted one good species (Z?. ausiralis)^ 

 and in the meantime (1862) Huxley had founded another 

 {D. minor). Beyond this, our knowledge has been until 

 recently confined to sundry scattered descriptions of odd 

 teeth and bones, some of the latter having been ap- 

 parently confounded with the limb bones of Chelonians 

 and other reptiles and mammals. Our greatest de- 

 sideratum therefore concerning these animals has been 

 a knowledge of their pedal skeleton, and it is precisely 

 that which the present memoir makes good. Moreover, 

 the fact that while the living Diprotodont Marsupialia, with 

 the exception of the South American Coenolestes, are all 

 Australian, recent exploration in the fossiliferous beds 

 of Patagonia has, according to Moreno {cf. Nature, 

 vol. Ix. p. 396), revealed the presence of remains, if not of 

 the genus Diprotodon itself, of near allies, invests both this 

 genus and the present memoir with a very special interest, 

 as involving the question of former inter-relationship 

 between the great continents, now a burning topic of 

 the times. 



The material, as already stated, was discovered in 

 a state unfit for preservation and removal ; and Mr. 

 Zietz, who has been chiefly concerned in its transport 

 and subsequent treatment, by judicious use of glue and 

 isinglass, has succeeded in so successfully preventing 

 its disintegration, that Dr. Stirling was enabled to bring 

 with him in 1897 for exhibition before the Zoological 

 Society some bones of the large extinct bird Genyornis 

 which they had then just described ; and those who were 

 so fortunate as to see them will recall their condition as 

 a triumph for the preparateur's art. Some idea of the 

 additional difficulties which had to be overcome, and of 

 the tax on the patience and endurance of the authors in 

 the field, may be formed from the description they give of 

 a " Diprotodont skull-mass," which, dried and prepared, 

 with its matrix, weighed close upon 2 cwt., and from the 

 fact that when their booty was packed ready for trans- 

 port their camels would start operations by getting 

 "bogged to their bellies in crossing the strip of lake- 

 surface which intervened between the working camp 

 and the nearest solid land, unloading being a necessity, 

 before extrication " and resumption of the 200 mile tramp 

 which lay beyond. 



These difficulties overcome, five years' continuous 

 work has enabled the authors to make known their re- 

 sults, and so important are these esteemed by the Royal 

 Society of South Australia that they have founded a 

 special series of memoirs (of which that under review 

 is the first) for their publication as the materials are 

 worked out. 



Dealing, first, with synonymy, the authors, in a pre- 

 liminary statement concerning dental characters, admit 



NC. T577, VOL. 61] 



Owen's D. ausiralis, and incline to the belief that Hux- 

 ley's D. minor may be identical with their smaller species ; 

 while, concerning a probable third species, somewhat 

 larger than this, they reserve fuller consideration for a 

 future memoir. Owen's D. Be7inettii is dismissed with 

 a passing comment. 



The main portion of the memoir is devoted to a de- 

 scription of the pedal skeleton, fourteen examples having 

 in all been obtained. The figures and descriptions are 

 based upon dissociated remains, no single member having 

 been found wholly complete in itself. The bones of the 

 right side are for both fore- and hind-limbs, each delineated 

 as a whole in one plate, as here reproduced except for 

 a slight modification in the lettering, the remaining six- 

 teen plates being devoted to the representation of in- 

 dividual bones in aspects necessary for their full study, 

 as described in detail in the text. 



Concerningthe fore-foot (Fig. i), the authors state that 

 the radius completely crosses the ulna, and that there is a 

 special radio-ulnar articulation formed, to admit of supi- 

 nation. Typically marsupial are the relationships of the 



■Diprotodon ausira/i's, skeleton of right fore-foot, dorsal aspect, 

 i natural size. 



pisciform (p.) and cuneiform (a?.), which are massive, 

 and together furnish a deep concavity for the ulnar 

 condyle. Trapezium (//«.), trapezoid (/d.), magnum (w,^.), 

 and unciform (un.) are all present. Interest chiefly 

 centres for the fore-limb in the identification of the pre- 

 axial proximal carpal element (sc.) (regarded by Owen 

 as a scapho-lunar) as the scaphoid, the term "scaphoid 

 sesamoid" being applied to a small bone which (s.s.) 

 flanks its lower free border with which it is apparently 

 in articulation. Concerning this our authors are very 

 brief, but we venture to think that, in view of the recent 

 researches of Pfitzner and Forsyth-Major, the validity 

 of their interpretation may be open to doubt ; and we 

 would recommend to their consideration Emery's memoir 

 on the development of the marsupial limb-skeleton (in 

 Semon's " Forschungsreise")~the best piece of work 

 on the subject during recent years. 



Both fore- and hind-limbs are pentadactyle, the digits 

 of all five in front and of all but the hallux behind 



