8 
ANNALS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM, No. 5. 
figure, but the amount of difference in form between the two forbids 
the slightest suspicion that the fossil may have come from a Thylacine, 
even could we easily imagine one of that genus some ten or twelve 
times the bulk of the living species. The following are the most 
obvious points of divergence : The convex ridge which serves 
the purpose of the so-called " styloid process " of anthropotomy 
has in Thylacinus a very oblique direction across the long axis of 
the shaft, more oblique than one would gather from the drawing. 
In the fossil its direction is parallel to that axis. The distal articular 
surface is at its ulnar end bounded by a pronounced tuberosity 
directed downwards ; this feature, absent in Thylaoinus, seems to be 
peculiar to its extinct relative. The shaft is compressed fore and aft 
like that of the dog, much broader than it is thick (27 mm. X 17 mm.), 
and of nearly the same breadth for the lower two-thirds of the part 
preserved ; proximad of this two-thirds it contracts rather suddenly. 
It is interesting to find on this bone muscular impressions that have 
much significance ; the extent of the origins of the pronator teres and 
supinator longus is strongly defined by terminal ridglets, while the 
surface for the supinator brevis extends downwards as low as the 
uncontracted part of the shaft, where, as it passed over the edge, its 
surface of attachment was increased by a protuberance on the margin 
of the bone — Plate IV., fig. A, 1. These indications of muscular 
activity in pronation and supination are to say the least not 
inconsistent with the possession and use of the great talon-cores 
attributed to the animal by Owen, and rather numerously represented 
in our collections ; they point to free play of muscular forelimbs in 
the prehension or retention of provender of whatever kind. 
The second sample of this bone being merely a much weathered 
distal end yields no further information, and may be passed over. 
Tibia. — Plate V., fig. A. — The tibia, which, in the absence of 
any other claimant, may very reasonably, if not necessarily, be 
attributed to Thylacoleo, is exemplified by a proximal end with about 
50 mm. of the shaft. The general form of its articular surface 
approaches decidedly to that of the tibia of Thylacinus, and, so 
doing, departs widely from the forms established in other 
Marsupials. Outside of the Marsupialia, the one of those which are 
available for comparison that comes nearest to it is the tibia of the 
Viverrine carnivores. Of the shaft, all that need be said is that the 
surface for the insertion of the ligamentum patellae is without any 
marked protuberance. The articular surface differs little in proportion 
but much in detail of form from that of Thylacinus. Its maximum 
and minimum diameters are 61 mm. and 50 mm. ; those of Thylacinus^ 
38 mm. and 30 mm. Difference of general form results first from 
the greater proportionate length as well as breadth of the anterior 
tuberosity— Plate V., fig. A, 1 — of which almost the whole anterior 
moiety was in the extinct animal occupied by the insertion of the 
patellar ligament. The great size of this tuberosity indicates, as in 
the kangaroos, uncommon power in the knee-joint, but that this power 
was not expended in saltatory swiftness is clear from the strong trend 
of the tuberosity outwards from the line of the thigh-bone (not 
