170 Dr. Gerard Krefft on a Cuvierian 



I refer those interested to Sir Thomas Mitchell's ' Three Expe- 

 ditions/ where, on plate 32 of vol. ii., the author remarks, 

 " The two figures 12 and 13 represent, on a reduced scale, 

 the large bone which M. Cuvier supposed to have belonged 

 to a young elephant." 



It was evidently M. Cuvier who could not distinguish 

 between the femur of a " gigantic kangaroo " and that of an 

 elephant ; and we are justified in discarding Cuvierian prin- 

 ciples as far as fossil marsupials are concerned. 



Professor Owen may say that the bone figured by Sir 

 Thomas Mitchell is not a kangaroo-bone ; but it never was the 

 femur of an elephant, and if not a kangaroo it certainly belongs 

 to a marsupial animal closely allied to it. All the other 

 objects represented on the same plate are either wrongly named 

 or not named at all. Did M. Cuvier inspect these bones 

 also? Did Professor Owen notice what they really are? 

 Fig. 1 is the ulna of a wombat ; fig. 2 a block of limestone 

 nodules with a few wombat-phalanges (toe-bones) in it ; fig. 3 

 is a much-worn lower incisor of a gigantic kangaroo ; figs. 4 

 and 5 are two views of a right upper first incisor of a Thyla- 

 coleo ; figs. 6, 7, 8, and 9 are different views of the right lower 

 incisor of Tliylacoleo ; fig. 10 represents the much-worn right 

 third premolar of a Tliylacoleo^ the very tooth which the author 

 of the " extinct leonine marsupial " constantly terms the great 

 carnassial, and which was of so little importance to him in 

 1836 that he never referred to it in his report on the Welling- 

 ton fossils. 



If these teeth did not strike Professor Owen in 1836 as 

 uncommon, why are they considered valuable evidence of car- 

 ni verity in 1858 or 1859? In that year I think the first 

 attempt was made to fit some fragments of a Thylacoleo' •& 

 skull into such a shape as to produce a cat-like head (' Cyclo- 

 pgedia Britannica,' art. Palfeontology, p. 175, fig. 115). Let 

 any unprejudiced person examine the impossible restoration of 

 that head (PI. XI. fig. 4), and he will at once see that the 

 author had a preconceived opinion about it, evidently trying to 

 form the remains into the skull of a carnivore. 



I consider these remarks necessary before reviewing Pro- 

 fessor Owen's paper ; and they will show : — 1st, that the chief 

 part of the Tliylacoleo' •& dentition was known to him as far 

 back as the year 1836 ; 2nd, that there was nothing very ex- 

 traordinary in the size or formation of the teeth, otherwise 

 Professor Owen would have noticed them long before ; 3rd, 

 that, having once pronounced a certain opinion, the author has 

 been reluctant ever since to modify or alter it ; 4th, and last, 

 that the principle in palaeontology laid down by the great 



