319 



(is— 21) in Phase, vombatus (figs. 1 & 2) and Phase, platyrhinus (fig. 3), it is still less in 

 the fossil, the apex only of the basal expanse of each nasal (is) touching the maxillary (21) 

 (Plate L. fig. 1) on each side of the skull. The naso-premaxillary suture (ib. 15-22, 22 ) 

 runs along the side borders to within half an inch of the extremities (is'), which are 

 obtusely pointed, as in Phascolomys platyrhinus. The suture or lateral border of the 

 nasals describes but two curves, concave at the basal half, convex at the apical one ; 

 slight in both, in Phascolomys Mitchelli. The angle formed by the fronto-nasal suture 

 (11-15) is as in Phase, platyrhinus (fig. 3) ; and an obtuse process, 3 lines broad, of the 

 frontal is wedged into the beginning of the internasal suture. 



Seeing the variations in regard to such frontal wedge, as in the sinuous course of the 

 lateral borders of the nasal, these bones could not differentiate by their form the fossil 

 from the existing continental Wombat (Phase, platyrhinus). The superiority of size is 

 but small in the fossil ; but the difference of connexion, shown in the almost exclusion 

 of the maxillary from junction with the nasal, is a satisfactory distinctive characteristic 

 of this part of the skull of the fossil Wombat under consideration, which I refer to the 

 Phascolomys Mitchelli, Ow.* 



The present representative of that species is from the same bone-cave as the type 

 fossilsf ; it has been flattened or crushed from above vertically downwards. The facial 

 parts of the premaxillaries (22, 22') are on the same horizontal plane as the nasals (15), 

 which they suturally join. The frontals (n, n) have been pressed away from the 

 nasals along the major part of the suture, and all the bones are more or less fractured. 

 To this condition the skull had been reduced before the drip of the cavern had 

 hardened the red mud about it. The process of clearing away such matrix was long 

 and tedious. 



Did the skull show the violence of a carnivorous troglodyte destroyer, or the effect of 

 some cosmical force operating on the breccia-bed of the cave ? If the former, the blunted 

 laniaries of our old Thylacoleo are the only animal dynamic in Australia capable of so 

 smashing the Wombat's head that I am as yet cognizant of. 



§ 6. Nasal bones in Phascolomys KrefFtii, Ow. — This species is founded on a fore 

 part of a skull (Plate L. figs. 2, 6) discovered by Gerard Krefft, Esq., in the same 

 bone-cave as the last-described fossil. It is as closely allied to the broad-fronted or 

 hairy-nosed Wombat as Phascolomys Mitchelli is to the bare-nosed continental species ; 

 and the value of the nasal characters comes well out in the comparisons determining the 

 present fossil. 



It includes the major part of the nasals (15), with the connected parts of the premax- 

 illaries (22) and maxillaries (21). The nasals are broad and flat ; their lateral margins are 

 suturally joined with a smaller proportion of the premaxillaries than in Phascolomys 

 latifrons (Woodcut, fig. 4, 22). 



* First defined in the Appendix to Mitchell's ' Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Aust ralia,' vol. ii. 

 8vo, 1838, pi. 48. figs. 4-7, p. 368 (2nd ed.). 



f Mitchell's ' Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia,' vol. ii. 8vo, 1838, pi. 48. figs. 4-7. 



