PEOPESSOE OWEN ON THE FOSSIL MAMMALS OE AIJSTEALIA. 321 
Pouched Lion which conclusion was based on the characters and comparisons of those 
fossil remains detailed in the foregoing pages. 
A desire to exhaust every needful and available subject of comparison has occasioned 
the long delay in communicating descriptions of the present selection of fossH remains 
of Australian Mammals. 
The concurrence in them of so many cranial characters found only in the Marsu- 
pialia, wiU be deemed, I apprehend, demonstrative of the marsupial nature of the 
Thylacoleo , and, amongst existing Marswpialia, the Sarco^Mlus or Basyurus ursinus — 
at present the largest existing species of its genus—seems to me to have the nearest 
affinities to the Thylacoleo^ although the interval be still very great between them. 
Desceiption op the Plates. 
PLATE XI. 
Side view of the cranium and part of the upper jaw of the Thylacoleo carnifex: 
— nat. size. 
Inside view of part of the upper jaw, showing both the sectorial and tubercular 
molars of ditto. 
Outside view of part of the lower jaw of the Thylacoleo cafnifex. 
Inside \iew of part of the left lower carnassial tooth of the Thylacoleo carnifex. 
Outside \iew of the same specimen. 
Upper view of the same specimen. 
PLATE XII. 
Fig. 1. Side \iew of the skull of the Felis spelwa (from European Bone-cave); — half 
nat. size. 
Fig. 1 a. Outline of the sutures between the nasals, .5, and frontal, n, and between the 
supeiior maxillary, 22, and the frontal, n, showing the backward extension of 
the maxillaries, which distinguishes the Lion from the Tiger nat. size. 
Fig. 2. Outline of the skull of the Thylacmus Harrisii : — nat. size. 
PLATE XIII. 
Fig. 1. Upper view of the cranium of the Thylacoleo carnifex: — two-thirds nat. size. 
Fig. 2. Upper view of the cranium of the Basyurus [Sarcophilus) ursinus ; — nat. size. 
Fig. 3. Upper view of the cranium of the Thylacmus Harrisii : — nat. size. 
Fig. 4. Inside view of part of the lower jaw of the Thylacoleo carnifex : — nat. size. 
Fig. 5. Upper view of the same fossil. 
Fig. 6. Side view of a metacarpal of a carnivorous quadruped; from Australian pleisto- 
cene. 
Fig. 7 . Proximal end of the same. 
Fig. 8. Distal end of the same. 
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 2. 
Fig. 3. 
Fig. 4. 
Fig. 5. 
Fig. 6. 
* From dvXuKos, marsupium ; Kkm’, leo. 
