PERIOD IN QUEENSLAND, BY C. W. DE VIS. 



109 



equilateral triangle, with its apex bevelled by two pyramidal faces — 

 one on the caudo-ental side, the other a facet of wear on the rostro- 

 ■ectal side, separated by an oblique apical edge, as in Phascolarctos. 

 The tooth is relatively much larger than in Phascolarctos, and 

 more carnassial in aspect — at the same time the structure of its 

 apex forbids us to suppose that its functions were in any degree 

 more carnassial than that of the Koala. In the great development 

 of the rostral incisor we may recognise a possible remanet of 

 relationship with Phascolomys. 



The length of the fossil to the fang of pm 4 is 43 m.m. — the 

 ordinary distance bttween the same points is in the Kaola 25 m.m. 



Archizonurus* Secui-us — an extinct Phalanger. 



The surprise naturally felt on learning that in bye-gone times 

 there were animals in Australia almost as large as any in Africa, 

 America, Europe, or India, is misgrounded. The wonder should 

 be that the living mammals we find here should be as puny as they 

 are, and to explain it we should be intent to discover the cause 

 of the degradation in size which reflection and discovery alike tell 

 us must have taken place. If it be a cause within the remedy of 

 us, the intelligent animals, who seek to thrive in the land by virtue 

 of its supply of nutriment, to apply that remedy, and so restore its 

 pristine ability to sustain even in a wild state, beasts as bulky as 

 those of other regions. Such is the practical reflection once more 

 suggested by a relic of past life, from which it appears that the very 

 ' 'possums' of old were in size the Bears of the present day. 



The fossil, now the subject of study, leaves no room for 

 doubt or misapprehension. It is the distal third of a shoulder 

 ^lade, in good preservation, distinguished by a large dilated and 

 jncrassated coracoid, which firmly denies all relationshp with 



* Chief-girdle-tail. 



