270 On the Species of Wombats. 
brown examples of P. platyrhinus in having the sides of the 
nasal bones converging simply and regularly towards the 
front. And to settle the matter I found the skull of the 
largest of the brown specimens on the table to have pre- 
sented the small outward lobes Gndicated by dotted lines on 
the wood-cut) as in the first mentioned black examples. There 
can be no doubt then, from the skins and skeletons before 
you, that the P. niger (Gould), is only a variety of the P. 
platyrhinus (Owen). The skeletons of both agreeing in 
having fifteen ribs, the last being four inches Jong in the 
males, but only from one to three inches long in the females 
examined ; the sacrum of four anchylosed vertebra, two 
anchylosed to the illum, and twelve caudal vertebre. 
The fourth good living species of wombat that Iam glad 
to be able to demonstrate the distinctness of to the Society, 
is the Phascolomys setosus of Gray. The stuffed specimen 
before you from near Adelaide, shows the characters on 
which Dr. Gray relied, in establishing the species, of which 
the light ashy yellowish brown colour, and the harsh fur, 
with numerous coarse blackish bristles scattered through it, 
are the principal ones, obviously distinguishing it from the 
other species. The originally described specimen which is 
the only one made known until this evening, had unfortu- 
nately no skull, and in the absence of osteological or more 
important external characters, Dr. Murie in his paper above 
quoted, sets P. setosus down as a synonym of the P. platyr- 
hinus. Ihave the great pleasure of showing you now that 
the species is really a good one by the characters of the 
skull, the nasal bone, of which much more nearly resembles 
those of the broad-fronted wombat than of the common 
brown P. platyrhimus in the great width and flatness of 
their posterior sutures. It differs from that species, however, 
in having the posterior suture, joining the nasals to the 
frontal gently convex, instead of nearly straight, and in 
having at rather more than half the length of each side from 
the anterior end a rounded angulation, giving a peculiar 
width to the middle of the nasals, as seen in the cut marked D. 
