GLYPTODON. 



429 



native quadrupeds of that division of the globe. That the 

 Marsupialia form one great natural group, is now generally 

 admitted by zoologists ; the representatives in that group of 

 many of the orders of the more extensive placental division 

 of the Mammalia of the larger continents 

 have also been recognized in the existing 

 genera and species : the dasyures, for ex- 

 ample, play the parts of the Carnivora, the 

 bandicoots (Perameles) of the Insectivora, the 

 phalangers of the Quadramana, the wombat 

 of the Rodentia, and the kangaroos, in a 

 remoter degree, that of the Ruminantia. 

 The first collection of mammalian fossils 

 from the ossiferous caves of Australia* 

 brought to light the former existence on 

 that continent of larger species of the same 

 peculiar marsupial genera : some as the 

 Thylacine, and the dasyurine sub-genus re- 

 presented by the D. ursinus, are now extinct 

 on the Australian continent, but one species 

 of each still exists on the adjacent island 

 of Tasmania ; the rest were extinct wombats, 

 phalangers, potoroos, and kangaroos — some 

 of the latter {Macropus Atlas, M. Titan) T , f . 



being of great stature. A single tooth, in Armadillo (Glypto- 



don clavipes), Pleis- 

 the same Collection Of fossils, gave the tocene, South Ame- 



first indication of the former existence of 

 a type of the marsupial group, which represented the Pachy- 

 derms of the larger continents, and which seems now to 

 have disappeared from the face of the Australian earth. 

 Of the great quadruped, so discriminated by the writer, under 

 the name Dijwotodon in 1 838, successive subsequent acquisi- 



* Mitchell's (Sir Thos.) Three Expeditions into the Interior of Australia, 

 8vo, 1838, vol. ii., p. 359. 



