1891.] 



BRAIN OF THE MALE THYLACINE. 



141 



The only descriptions of the Thylacine brain with which I am 

 acquainted are contained in Professor Flower's memoir upon the Mar- 

 supial brain \ that by Gervais, and that by Sir Richard Owen in the 

 ' Anatomy of Vertebrates.' Prof. Flower figures the internal aspect 

 of a longitudinal median section as well as a transverse section 

 through the corpus callosum. His description of the brain is 

 limited to the following passage in his paper (p. 61(i) : — 



"The large carnivorous Marsupial, the Thylacine {Thijlacinus 



Fig. 2. 



Right /-/Atr 



•^t 5\ 



Brain of Thylacine, riglit and left halves, a little reduced from 

 natural size. <S', Sylvian fissure. T, Rhinal fissure. 



cynocephalus), so widely separated in external characters from both 

 the Kangaroo and Wombat, shows the same general peculiarities of 

 cerebral organization, but attended with a smaller development of the 

 superior transverse commissure, especially of its anterior part, and 

 a greater reduction of the thickness of the interventricular septum." 

 Sir Richard Owen {loc. cit. vol. in. p. 105) remarks that Thylacinus 

 " has the anterior apex of the heujisphere marked off by a deeper 

 transverse fissure, extending to the inner surface," and that " there 

 is a short fissure above the back part of the hippocampal one." He 

 does not, however, refer to any fuller description of this brain, but 



1 " On the CommiBSurcs of the Cerebral Hemispheres of the Marsupialia and 

 Mouotrem ata as compared with those of the Placental Mammals," Phil. Trans. 

 1865, pp. 6.j3-651, pis. xxxvi.-xxxviii. 



