i869-7i DISCOVERIES IN PURBECK ROCKS 
209 
broad bandaging it is; when done, “Bambino” 
was propped upright in a corner and seemed to 
like it, crowing loudly, and its two fore-paws like 
a little Punch, sticking out of the top of its 
mummy case. After the process of wrapping, 
the little mummy smiled and shook its little hands 
in a very pretty way to my advances to intimacy. 
. . . Reached Naples at 9.30 and found the other 
men of our party had been packed like herrings 
and got no sleep ! ’ 
Early in February 1871 Owen returned to 
England and to his work at the British Museum. 
In this year he contributed to the Palaeontographi- 
cal Society a ‘Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia 
of the Mesozoic Formations.’ This publication 
was chiefly devoted to a detailed account of the 
remarkable discoveries made since 1854 by Mr. 
Beckles in the Purbeck Rocks near Swanage. 
It established the existence of a large fauna of 
small marsupial mammals, ‘ insignificant in size 
and power, adapted for insect food, for preying 
upon small lizards, or on the smaller and weaker 
members of iheir own low Mammalian grade.’ 
In August 1871 Owen visited Mr. Fowler 
at Braemore, Ross-shire, whence, on August 13, 
1871, he writes to his wife : ‘ I am now the only 
guest. Lady Ashburton and T. Carlyle drove 
over and took tea with us on Friday (iith), and 
strolled along the easier walks. He is much 
emaciated, can digest but little, and hardly gets 
VOL. II. 
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