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XVI. On the Fossil Mammals of Australia. — Part I. Description of a mutilated Skull 

 of a large Marsupial Carnivore (Thylacoleo carnifex, Owen), from a calcareous con- 

 glomerate stratum, eighty miles S.W. of Melbourne, Victoria. By Professor Owm, 

 V.P.R.S. &c.. Superintendent of the Natural History Bepartments in the British 

 Museum, and Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain. 



Eeceived September 18, — Head December 16, 1858. 



In a Report, No. X., on the Geology of the Basin of the Condamine River, by the 

 Rev. W. B. Clakke, to the Honourable the Colonial Secretary of Australia, dated 14th 

 October, 1853, is the following passage: — "It is probable that Mr. Stutchbuky, whose 

 studies in palaeontology fit him for the search, will be so fortunate as to find the remains 

 of an animal indicated by Professor Owen*, in the year 1842, of a carnivorous kind, 

 for, as he says, ' some destructive species of this kind must have coexisted, of larger 

 dimensions than the extinct Dasyurus laniarius, the ancient destroyer of the now equally 

 extinct Kangaroo, Macropus Titan, &c., whose remains were discovered in the bone- 

 caves of Wellington Valley.' There were some fragments in the immense heap of 

 osseous matter accumulated by Mr. Tuener, which appeared likely to belong to such a 

 carnivorous giant, but they were too small and imperfect to deserve conjectural descrip- 

 tion. The discovery of what must have existed cannot be altogether incapable of demon- 

 stration, and, therefore, such a verification of Professor Owen's anticipation is to be 

 hoped for on many grounds." — p. 6. 



Now, although such verification has come to hand, I admit that the absolute terms in 

 which the anticipation was expressed merit the mild rebuke implied by the italics in 

 which those terms are emphasized in the quotation from the ' Report ' by the accom- 

 plished geologist of Australia. Eighteen years of scientific experience have engendered 

 a more cautious tone in referring to inductive probabilities. 



The e\idence of a large carnivorous marsupial, fi-om pliocene formations in Australia, 

 reached me not many years after my determination of the still larger herbivorous mar- 

 supial, Biprotodon australisf, which first suggested the idea of the coexistence. That 

 e\idence was received in the year 1846 with the accompanying letter from my esteemed 

 friend and correspondent Dr. Hobson, of Melbourne : — 



* Letter to Editor of ' Annals of Natural History,' November 1st, 1842. 



t Zoological Appendix to 'Mitchell's Three Expeditions into the Interior of Australia,' 8vo, 1838, 

 vol. ii. p. 362. 



MDCCCLIX. 



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