THE VICTOBIAN NATURALIST. 27 



Lilydale, species of Holopella, Euomphalus, Flustra, etc. ; and by 

 Mr. S. H. Wintle, F.L.S., polyzoa from South Australia, viz., 

 Escharas Buslcii, (Woods), E. j)orrecta, (Woods), and Sphcerica 

 Ockleyii, (Wintle), a large sheet of mica from West Australia, 

 specimens of Terehratula mtcroles, (Wintle), a photograph of Hobart 

 taken by exhibitor 30 years ago by the iodized albumen process, also 

 photographs of vertical section of Upper Silurian beds at Victoria 

 Street Bridge catting, Kew, showing nearly vertical dykes of 

 decomposed felsite, in which occur concretions of limonite. 

 After the usual conversazione the meeting terminated. 



THE FOSSIL MAMMALIAIT REMAINS OF TASMANIA 



COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE AUSTRALIAN 



MAINLAND. 



By S. H. Wintle, F.L.S., &c. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, June 14th, 1886) 



It is a somewhat remarkable fact^ that hitherto palasontological 

 researches in Tasmania have failed in bringing to light the fossil 

 bones of animals that had an existence in the pleistocene epoch of 

 this Australian mainland; and it is one that I venture to regard as 

 deserving of more general attention, may I say, than it has hitherto 

 received. Having devoted much attention to the subject by practical 

 researches in Tasmania, extending over many years, I purpose in 

 these remarks to point out the singular breaks — the missing links 

 in the chain of past mammalian life between the mainland and the 

 island, which have presented themselves to my observation during 

 the last quarter of a century. 



As far as researches have extended in Tasmania up to the 

 present date, no true bone-breccia of pleistocene age has yet been 

 discovered, such as that of the celebrated WelHngton Caves in New 

 South Wales, to wit, nor indeed anything that furnishes evidence of 

 extinct orders of .mammalian life differing widely from existing forms. 



That repulsive, untameable, and treacherous animal, the Tasmanian 

 Devil (^Sarcophilus ursinus), whose powerful jaws and massive teeth 

 are a study in themselves, is found fossil only in this continent in 

 the pleistocene deposits. So also with the Thylacinus cynocephalus, 

 the Tasmanian tiger, sometimes called the marsupial wolf. These 

 carnivora no longer inhabit the forests of the Australian continent, 

 preying upon inoffensive herbivora. No fossil remains of the huge 

 Diprotodon, whose enormous bones have been exhumed in Victoria, 

 South Australia, Western Australia, and New South Wales — and 

 no remains of the Nototherium, Procoptodon, and Thylacoleo — 



