38388 Dr. A. Smith Woodward—On Diprotodon from Australia. 
described by Owen,! has proved that the whole of its middle part 
is a hypothetical restoration in plaster. In the latter specimen all 
the brain-case is wanting, except the occipital plate; and now that 
the added plaster has been removed, a correct adjustment of the 
zygomatic arches shows that the total length of the skull is from 
four to five inches shorter than it was supposed to be by Owen. 
The newly-determined length agrees with that of the South Australian 
model, but in other respects the actual portions of skull preserved 
differ considerably from the corresponding parts of the model. This 
model is altogether wider and stouter than Owen’s original specimen 
from Queensland, with a much deeper zygomatic arch. Its mastoid 
processes are made larger; the occipital plate is higher at the sides, 
the lambdoidal crest not sloping so much from the apex; and above 
the foramen magnum there should be a well-marked depression, which 
was partly filled with plaster in the Queensland specimen when Owen 
prepared his description. At least, if there is justification for these 
features of the model in the Callabonna specimens, the South 
Australian animal is specifically distinet from Diprotodon australis. 
The seven cervical vertebre agree well with those from Queensland 
in the British Museum. There are fourteen thoracic and five lumbar 
vertebre,; all with the neural arches much less elevated than those 
shown in Owen’s original restored drawing of the animal. The centra 
of the posterior dorsal and lumbar vertebree are shightly wedge-shaped, 
and readily form the curve in which they are now mounted. 
The pelvis and sacrum in the British Museum skeleton are a copy 
in plaster of a well-preserved specimen from Queensland, with the 
anterior expansion of each ilium restored from the photograph of 
a pelvis found in the Wellington Caves, New South Wales (probably 
now in the Australian Museum, Sydney.) Two Queensland specimens 
in the British Museum and the original of the photograph just 
mentioned exhibit only two sacral vertebrae fused with the pelvis, 
as already described by Owen.? We have therefore ventured to 
regard the sacral vertebree as normally two in number, and have not 
reconstructed the additional two vertebre to conform to the South 
Australian restoration, which has a sacrum of four vertebre fused 
with the pelvis. The caudal vertebra, actual specimens from Lake 
Callabonna, are nineteen in number. 
In the limbs of the British Museum skeleton, the scapule are 
plaster casts of two specimens from Queensland, while the fore and 
hind feet of the right side are plaster casts of feet in the South 
Australian Museum. All the other parts are actual bones carefully 
selected by Dr. Stirling from his large collection from Lake Callabonna. 
The humerus and femur are about equal in length, the first being 
slightly longer, the second slightly shorter than the corresponding 
bones in Dr. Stirling’s restoration. The length of the scapula bears 
the same relation to that of the humerus as in the latter restoration. 
The feet exhibit well the diminutive digits, and conform to the 
1 R. Owen, ‘‘On the Fossil Mammals of Australia.—Part III: Diprotodon 
australis, Owen’’: Phil. Trans., 1870, p. 521, pl. xxxy. 
2 Loe. cit., 1870, p. 554, pl. xlvii. 
