MARSUPIALIA. 



molar so small as it must have been in the fossil on that 

 supposition. 



Upon the whole, the conclusion that the present Eocene 

 tertiary fossil is marsupial is the most probable one, but 

 the evidence is insufficient to demonstrate that fact, much 

 less the family or genus. 



A record of the slightest indication of a marsupial ani- 

 mal, and especially of an Opossum, or true Didelphys, 

 in a tertiary deposit of the Eocene period in this country, 

 becomes valuable, if only as an incentive and aid to further 

 researches and discoveries, which might place beyond doubt 

 so interesting an additional concordance between the Mam- 

 malian fossils of that epoch in England and in Continental 

 Europe. 



The circumstances attending the discovery by Cuvier of 

 the fossil remains of a small species of Didelphys in the 

 gypsum of Paris, furnish so striking an exemplification 

 of the power of the principle which guided that great 

 anatomist in the interpretation of fossil bones and in the 

 reconstruction of extinct animals, that a brief notice of 

 them may not be unacceptable, as they are not entirely 

 foreign to the present section of the History of British 

 Fossil Mammalia. 



The remains in question included a considerable pro- 

 portion of the skeleton of a small quadruped, partially 

 buried in two portions of a split block of gypsum. 



The impression of the lower jaw indicated, by the ele- 

 vation of the coronoid process above the condyle and by 

 the backward prolongation of the angle of the jaw, that 

 it belonged to a carnassial or ferine animal ; but the 

 elevation of the condyle above the level of the line of teeth 

 excluded it from the true Carnivora, as Dogs, Cats, Bears, 

 Weasels, &c., and brought it within the range of the 



