Lect. III.] FOSSIL MARSUPIALS. 83 



to us in a similar series of memoirs in the Zoological Transactions. 

 These, and many others come flocking to my mind whilst I write. 

 Having begun my own biological studies by the help of some of his 

 earlier works, I take pleasure in making mention of these noble 

 monuments of the labour of a long life. 



The great men who did so much for palaeontology half a century 

 ago, of whom Owen is almost the only survivor, have now their 

 rivals in the present generation of American geologists, who are daily 

 giving us new and pleasant surprises. 



But, whilst one man will " cut Colossus out of a rock, another will 

 carve a head in a cherry-stone." 



Great as is the value to be set upon the work of our palseontolo- 

 gical fathers, the work of the rising biologists is of still greater value ; 

 and that even with regard to the past history of these Metatherian 

 types. Palaeontology is good, but Embryology is better, for if all 

 Sir Richard Owen's giants could be made to live again — an exceeding 

 great army — they would tell us less of the origin of the Marsupials 

 than we should gain by the knowledge of the development of a single 

 germ of any one living ty]3e. 



Mr J. J. Fletcher, B.A., B.Sc, has lately sent me two of his 

 papers, the beginnings of his researches into the anatomy of the 

 internal organs of the Australian Marsu23ials. These have been 

 published in the Proceedings of the Linncean Society of New Sovfh 

 Wales, Nov. 30, 1881, part i. (Introductory), pp. 796-811, and oS'ov. 

 31, 1883, part ii. pp. 6-11.^ 



There have also come across the Atlantic, lately, tAvo noteworthy 

 memoirs; the first, "On the Embryo of the Kangaroo," is by Dr. 

 H. C. Chapman (Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy, 1881, 

 part iii. p. 469), and the second. Observations upon the Fcetal 

 Membranes of the Opossum and other Marsupials, is by Henry 

 F. Osborn, Sc.D. 



The two papers just mentioned might, literally, be folded up and 

 packed inside a nut-shell, and yet, if I am not greatly mistaken, they 

 let in more light upon the incoming of both the Metatheria and 

 the Eutheria than anything that has gone before. 



1 On tlie same page (11) there is a paper by Mr C. W. de Vis, M.A., "On 

 the Remains of an Extinct Marsupial, a new Type," called by him Sthenomerus 

 char on. 



