XIV. PALAEONTOLOGY OR FOSSILS. 113 



have rivalled the Rhinoceros in size, and to be related to the 

 Native Bear or Wombat. Its bones have been found distributed 

 generally throughout Eastern and Southern Australia ; and 

 through the researches of the late Edward T. Hardman, Govern- 

 ment Geologist of W. Australia, we now know that it attained as 

 great a northerly range as the Lennard River, 80 miles from 

 King Sound (Lat. 17° 20' S., Long. 125° E.) The specimens 

 include a representation of the large skull now in the Museum of 

 Natural History, London, along with several limb bones, vertebrae, 

 and molar teeth. From the lacustrine deposits of the Darling 

 Downs is a fine pelvis and several caudal vertebrae, the diameter 

 of the pelvic bones being three feet. The similar bones of a still 

 larger individual from Coolah are exhibited, in which the span 

 reached three feet six inches. 



Of the allied genus NototheriuTn there are exhibited, in case 

 No. 17, several teeth and the original skull, the most perfect 

 hitherto found of this animal which was named, by the late W, 

 Sharp Macleay, Zygomaturus. It was, however, shown by 

 Prof. Sir R. Owen to be identical with his previously described 

 Nototheriii7n. 



Of the PJiascolomyidce or Wombats there are in case No. 14 

 three remarkable bones representing an individual which must 

 have stood at least four feet high when alive. These consist of 

 humerus, femur and ulna. With these also are strange, flat 

 and broad curved teeth, probably the front upper incisors of a 

 marsupial rodent-like animal, which has been named by Dr. E. P. 

 Ramsay Sceparnodon. The teeth in question were found at King's 

 Creek, Darling Downs, and at Lake Eyre, South Australia. 



The order Monotremata, containing the "Porcupine" {Echidna) 

 and the " Platypus " {Ornithorhynchus), is represented in the 

 fossil state by a few bones from the Wellington Valley Caves, 

 shown in case No. 14, certainly those of a terrestrial and 

 fossorial genus, and probably identical with the Echidna^ 

 but greatly larger than the living species. The remains of 

 this order were first found in a fossil state by the late Mr. 

 Gerard Krefit, formerly Curator of this Museum. 



