112 



OX THE rilALANCilSTID.E OF THE POST-TERTIARY 



sufficient reason to doubt on structural grounds, lie cannot presume 

 to traverse the practice of high authorities. 



On testing the present fragment by comparison with the 

 scapulas of most of the modern Phalangers, it is found to approach 

 nearest and, indeed, very near to C scus orientalis, a result 

 not without significance. From resemblance in the few points of 

 mere specific differentiation which so small a part of the skeleton is 

 able to yield, it would, of course, be rash to adduce the degree of 

 affinity indicated by them is proof of a hypothesis to be pleaded, 

 yet the indications, such as they are, may be permitted to suggest 

 that the zooloogical community between the home of C. orient. din 

 (the New Hebrides), New Zealand and Queensland, which has 

 already been traced on the surface, may eventually be traced below 

 it. 



The form of the glenoid fo?sa of this — a right scapula — is 

 reproduced in that of C. orientalis, but with a little less expansion 

 and concavity for the head of the humerus. The fossil has its 

 bicipital tubercle well developed. The coracoid process is imperfect, 

 having lost both the free angle of its ecto-rostral end and the 

 extended portion of its ento-caudal termination. The continuity of 

 the sulcus separating it from the glenoid fossa is not broken by a 

 distinct connecting ridge — the entire absence of such being also a 

 peculiarity in C. orientalis. On the ental side of the base of the 

 process is a large irregular cavity for insertion of ligament; no 

 distinct remains of this excavation have been seen by the writer in 

 recent Phalangers, except in the New HYbridean Cuscus in which it 

 appears as a small but obvious fossa amidst a little roughness of the 

 adjacent surface. In its passage towards the ectal side of the bone 

 the groove is limited caudad by a sharp edge continued from the 

 ental margin of the glenoid fossa rostrad of the bicipital tubercle — 

 reaching the ectal surface it expands upon it and forms a deep well- 

 defined rounded depression, better retained in C. orientalis tlnn in 

 other Phalangers. 



The size of the animal revealed 1 y this fossil was much the 

 same as that of Archizonurus. 



