1870.] Prof. Owen on the Fossil Mammals of Australia. 95 



II. " Experiments on the Action of Red Bordeaux Wine (Claret) on 



the Human Body." By E. A. Parkes, M.D., F.R.S., Professor 

 of Hygiene in the Army Medical School, and Count Cyprian 

 Wollowicz, M.D. ; Assistant Surgeon, Army Medical Staff. 

 Received July 5 ; 1870. (See page 73.) 



III. "On the Mathematical Theory of Combined Streams." By 

 W. J. Macquorn Rankine, C.E., LL.D., F.R.SS. Lond. and 

 Edinb. Received Sept. 10, 1870. (See page 90.) 



IV. " On the Fossil Mammals of Australia. — Part IV. Dentition and 

 Mandible of Thylacoleo Carrdfex, with Remarks on the Argument 

 for its Herbivority." By Prof. Owen, F.R.S. &c. Received 

 September 27, 1870. 



(Abstract.) 



In this paper the author, referring in the Introductory Section (§ ] ) to 

 objections published to his former restorations and inferences as to the 

 function of the dentition of Thylacoleo, proceeds to give descriptions, with 

 figures, of (§ 2) an upper jaw and maxillary teeth, and (§ 3) of a portion 

 of the mandible with mandibular teeth, from tertiary deposits at Gowrie 

 Creek, Queensland, presented to the British Museum by Sir Daniel 

 Cooper, Bart. 



He then describes certain specimens and photographs of maxillary teeth 

 (§ 4), and of mandibular teeth (§ 5) of the Thylacoleo, subsequently ob- 

 tained by Prof. A. M. Thomson, of Sydney, and Gerard Krefft, Esq., Cu- 

 rator of the Museum of Natural History, Sydney, New South Wales, from 

 caves in "Wellington valley, for the exploration of which a grant had been 

 voted by the Local Legislature of New South "Wales. 



Section 6 is given to a description of the specimen in the British 

 Museum, and a cast in the Museum at Sydney of an entire inferior in- 

 cisor, transmitted, with the photograph above mentioned, to the author. 

 The guiding principle in inferring function from form of teeth is next de- 

 fined (§ 7), and the author proceeds to discuss the objection from the loca- 

 tion of laniaries in § 8. The dentitions of Thylacoleo and of Phascolarctos 

 are compared in § 9 ; and the results contrasted with those of the advocates 

 of the herbivority of both genera, which were illustrated by the figures 

 2 & 4 in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' vol. xxiv. 

 pp.312, 313 (1868). 



In § 10 the deductions from the mandibular characters of carnivorous 

 and herbivorous marsupials are tested, and those characters illustrated by 

 descriptions and figures of the lower jaw in Thylacoleo, Cheiromys, Pla- 

 giaulax, Thylacinus, Sarcophilus, Phascolarctos, and Hypsiprymnus. The 

 testimony to the native food of the Aye-aye is sifted in § 11, and the 



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