268 On the Species of Wombats. 
December 1865, shows that my original determination was 
perfectly correct, and that the supposed correction of Mr. 
Flower, accepted by Gould, was erroneous. : 
Dr. Murie, in his paper above cited, gives some osteological 
characters for the hairy-nosed wombat, differing from those 
in the skeleton before you ; he counts, for instance, thirteen 
dorsal vertebre, and thirteen pairs of ribs, while there are 
really fourteen, the fourteenth or last rib being only about 
half an inch long was probably overlooked; and this may 
have led to his counting six lumbar vertebrae, when 
there are really only five. The caudal vertebra are not 
alluded to, but they are extraordinarily numerous, being six- 
teen in number, while the Tasmanian Wombat has only 
eleven, and the common Victorian Wombat twelve. 
The Sacrum is another remarkable portion of the skeleton 
not referred to in Dr. Murie’s paper, but which I find singu- 
larly interesting ; from the unexpected differences it presents 
in the different species. In the Lasiorhimus, two sacral ver- 
tebree anchylose with the illium, but three are anchylosed 
together by their transverse processes in the male, and the 
fourth nearly so in the female. The sacrum in P. platyrhinus 
is formed of four vertebree united by their transverse 
processes, the two anterior being anchylosed to the illium. 
In the Tasmanian P. wombat there is an extraordinary differ- 
ence in the sacrum, which is composed of seven vertebre, of 
which the first and second are anchylosed to the illium ; the 
first five anchylosed by their transverse processes into one 
group, and the sixth and seventh anchylosed by their trans- 
verse processes into a second group which is attached to the 
ischium. The sacrum of the common Victorian fossil species, 
the Phascolomys pliocenus (M‘Coy), is composed of seven 
vertebree, all anchylosed by their bodies, the first to the 
fourth anchylosed by their transverse processes into one 
group, the three anterior of which are anchylosed to the 
illium, and the sixth and seventh anchylosed by the 
transverse processes into a second group, closely approaching 
the ischium. 
The most common Victorian wombat, the large brown con- 
tinental species, has now been proved by Dr. Murie to be, 
as I originally suggested, identical with the Phascolomys 
platyrhinus of Owen, one of the species founded by him on 
the skull only in 1853, but overlooked ever since by zoolo- 
gists, and the original skull of which has recently been com- 
pared at the College of Surgeons with the skulls taken from 
