151 



superlative degree of carnassiality of the premolar, suggested the expression of the pouched 

 Lion having been " one of the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts"*. 



Had Dr. Falconer been aware of the genera and species of Cuvier's Carnassiers, with 

 laniariform or canine-like teeth ' approximate,' he would scarcely have advocated the her- 

 bivority of Thylacoleo by statements and remarks open to so facile and obvious a refutation. 



The Curator of the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, and now Hunterian Pro- 

 fessor, cognizant by his duties of a greater range of zootomical facts, nevertheless adopts 

 the argument from divarication of the laniaries in the Carnivora known to Dr. Falconer, 

 and salves the exceptions by affirming " the modus operandi of the Hedgehog in snapping 

 up and devouring a beetle is totally different from that of a Cat in seizing and killing a 

 Rat or a Rabbit "f . And one may conclude that the Thylacoleo, from the nearer resem- 

 blance of its laniaries and of the jaw working them to those of the Cat, would show, also, 

 some difference from the Hedgehog in the snapping or seizing of its prey. But Professor 

 Flower, in a question of such importance to Physiology as the reconstruction of Thylacoleo. 

 should have defined the ' total difference ' between the mode of application by the Hedge- 

 hog of its ' approximate' laniaries and that of the application of the Cat or Stoat of their 

 ' divaricate' ones in the killing of a young Rabbit : for the Hedgehog invades the burrows 

 of the prolific rodent to devour the offspring ; it is by no means exclusively insectivorous. 



Was the well-armed mandible, with its low and advantageous joint for a strong grip, 

 applied by Potamogale in piercing, holding, and killing its fish in so different a fashion 

 from that of the like mandible in Lutra, as to lend any countenance to the assumption 

 that the juxtaposed long terminal incisors of the lissencephalous Otter were put to the 

 service of an herbivore — to the same service as they are in the Koala, e. g. \ Yet, if Pro- 

 fessor Flower's argument and diagrams J mean any thing, they mean this ! 



The Thylacoleo 's approximate incisors § are relatively as long, as sharp, as laniariform 

 as are those of Potamogale ; and if we turn to the teeth (Plate XIV. p 2-4, m 1, 2), which 

 tell us truly the use to which such incisors were put, they speak directly and plainly 

 that it was for capturing and killing a higher prey than fishes. 



Comparison of the Teeth of Thylacoleo ivith those of Phascolarctos. — The light 

 thrown by the large carnassial and small tubercular Fig. 4. 



teeth on the application and function of the laniaries 

 of Thylacoleo is sought to be obscured by conjectural 

 figures of the structure of those laniaries and of the 

 jaw that works them. 



In fig. 2 (XII. p. 312), entitled " Thylacoleo camifex 



restored," Professor Flower represents the incisors 



with truncate summits, like those of an herbivorous 



front view 01 mandible and teeth {Tny- 



marsupial. This restoration is reproduced in Cut, lacoleo), as restored, one-third nat. size, by 



fig. 4. The carnassial of Tliylacoleo (ib. p) has features ■ Professor Flower (XII. p. 312, fig. 2). 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1859, p. 319. f XII. p. 318. i XII. p. 317, & pp. 312, 313, figs. 2, 4, 5. 

 § These teeth are represented too broad in proportion to their length, or too short in proportion to their breadth, 

 in XII. fig. 2. 



