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VIII. On the Fossil Mammals of Australia . — Part VIII. Family Mackopodid.e : 
Genera Macropus, Ospliranter, Phascolagus, Sthenurus, and Protemnodon. By 
Professor Owen, IJi.S. &c. 
Received November 11, 1872, — Eead January 23, 1873. 
§ 1. Introduction. — Through the adventurous journeys of John Gould, F.R.S., in the 
wilds of Australia, and by the noble works * * * § in which he has given the results of his 
zoological observations in that continent and the adjoining island of Tasmania, we 
mainly know the extent and kinds of variation under which the Kangaroos there exist. 
The present communication gives part of the researches into the forms of those 
saltatory herbivorous Marsupials which have passed away, or, at least, are known to 
naturalists only by their fossil remains. I shall be happy if I am able to complete a 
work which may be regarded as worthy to rank as a supplement to that of my old and 
esteemed friend and fellow labourer. 
As the extinct species which I now attempt to define (their restoration awaiting 
further materials) have chiefly been made known to me by their fossil jaws and teeth, 
some remarks on the latter organs will be briefly premised. 
The dentition of the Kangaroos (bilophodont Macropodidcef) is summarily described 
and figured in my ‘ Odontography ’ J : in later works § its phases of development and 
mutation are exemplified in detail in Macropus major || . The last phase delineated 
(Anat. of Vert. vol. iii. fig. 296, e) is that which is shown in the subject of figs. 15 & 
16, Plate XX., in the mandible of Macropus major , in which the anterior of the four 
retained molars ( d 4) is “ nodding to its fall.” I have seen a specimen of an older Kangaroo 
of this species in which the series of grinders was reduced to two, viz. m 2 and m 3. 
Fig. 15, Plate XX., is also introduced to exemplify the largest size of mandible to be 
derived from any known existing kind of Kangaroo. The other figures in that Plate 
* Those which relate to the present Paper are : — Monograph on the Macropodidae, or Family of the Kan- 
garoos, folio, 1841-42 ; The Mammals of Australia, folio, 1845-54. 
f This is a section distinct from the Kangaroo-rats, Bettongs, &c., with quadrituberculate molars, included 
in the subfamily Hypsvp rymnidae . 
t 4to, 1840-45, pp. 389-393, pis. 100, 101, 102. 
§ Art. Teeth, in ‘Cyclopaedia of Anatomy,’ vol. iv. ; also ‘ Anatomy of Yertebrates,’ 8vo, vol. iii. p. 380, 
fig. 296. 
|| I have always referred to this large and first-discovered species of Kangaroo under Shaw’s later name 
(General Zoology, vol. i. pp. 505, 800). Mr. Waterhouse alludes to it sometimes (as in p. 52 of his excellent 
‘Natural History of Mammalia’) as Macropus major, sometimes as Macropus giganteus (ib. p. 55), the synonym 
of ZruarERMAx’s Jerboia gigantea (1777) and of Scheeber’s Didelphis gigantea (1778). 
MDCCCLXXIV. 2 K 
