272 MASTODON. 



colossal Diprotodon and Nototherium, with the carnivorous 

 Thylacoleo, have died out, and the giant Kangaroos, &c, 

 have dwindled down into their small-sized living representa- 

 tives. But except in bulk and in the extinction of certain 

 types, there is no indication that the modern fauna has 

 degenerated from a higher to a lower grade of organization. 

 To this general rule there is only one asserted exception, 

 which, however, is of a very important order, being the so- 

 called Mastodon Australis of Prof. Owen. I have long enter- 

 tained doubts regarding the authenticity of the solitary molar 

 tooth, upon which the conclusion mainly rests. These I have 

 already advanced in an abridged form ; ' but as the assertion 

 has since then been repeated by its author, it is full time 

 that the case should be either established or confuted, more 

 especially as the asserted exception, coming forth under the 

 authority of so eminent a name, has been commonly adopted 

 by palaeontologists. 



In 1843 Professor Owen published the description and 

 figure of a fossil femur of large size, discovered by Sir 

 Thomas L. Mitchell in Darling Downs, SW. of Moreton 

 Bay, in Australia. 2 It was compared with the corresponding 

 bone of Mastodon giganteus, and inferred to be of a Masto- 

 dontoid quadruped. But a perfect femur of Biprotodon 

 Australis, acquired within the last few years for the British 

 Museum, along with an entire cranium and other fine 

 remains, places it beyond doubt that the Darling Downs 

 specimen, now preserved in the Museum of the College of 

 Surgeons, is of the Marsupial Biprotodon, and not of any 

 Proboscidean form. 



In the following year (1844), the same aiithor published a 

 figure and description of ' a fossil molar tooth of a Mastodon 

 discovered by Count Strzlecki in Australia,' which he pro- 

 visionally named M. Australis ; and he describes it as bearing 

 a close resemblance to the molars of M. angustidens of 

 Europe. 3 In his report ' On the Fossil Mammalia of Austra- 

 lia,' communicated to the British Association in 1844, the 

 following paragraph occurs : 



' I cannot conclude, without adverting to the singular excep- 

 tion which the Mastodon forms to the continental localization, 

 not only of existing but of Pliocene and Post-Pliocene extinct 

 genera of mammalia above briefly dwelt upon. The solitary 

 character of the exception helps rather to establish the 

 generalization, at least I know of no other extinct genus of 

 mammal which was so cosmopolitan as the Mastodon. It 



1 Quarterly Journ. Geo. Soc. vol. xiii. ' 2 Annals and Mag. of Nat. History, 

 p. 319, Synop. Table. [See also vol. i. New Ser. vol. xi. p. 8, fig. 1. 

 p. 106.— Ed.] 3 Op. cit. vol. xiv. p. 268. 



