PEOFESSOE OWEN ON THE FOSSIL MAMMALS OF AUSTEALIA. 
255 
“contest for existence The small burrowing Kivisf, like the small Wombats, have 
survived. Phascolomys gigas and Phascolomys magnus are not likely to have escaped 
observation if they still lingered in any of the localities made known by the adventurous 
explorers of Australia ; but the diminutive Phase, parvus may yet be found living in 
some part of that continent. 
Another inference, or tributary illustration of a general law, is shadowed forth less 
plainly, perhaps, than that bearing upon the “ battle of life.” 
The majority of the fossils of common-sized Wombats exemplify, as in the case of 
Phascolomys Mitchelli , the more generalized structure ; osteological characters, now 
distinguishing respectively the hairy-nosed and bare-nosed Wombats, are combined in 
the skull of that extinct species. At the same time divergent courses of variation had 
reached the stages indicated by Phascolomys latifrons and Phascolomys plcdyrhinus at a 
period when the larger species, now extinct, appear to have been living in Australia. 
This is less ambiguously shown, as to time, by the mandible of the continental bare-nosed 
Wombat from Queensland, than by that of the hairy-nosed species from the breccia of 
the Wellington- Valley Caverns; for, with regard to specimens obtained from caves, 
there are grounds of uncertainty as to contemporaneity of introduction not affecting, 
at least in the same degree, the fossils from stratified deposits of known geological age. 
The extirpating cause of the larger Wombats, especially if they were unable to take- 
refuge and conceal themselves under ground, was probably the hostility of man. No- 
human remains, however, or weapons have yet been discovered in the substalagmitic 
breccias of the caves or in the freshwater deposits of Australia. But as the unseen 
planet is inferred by evidence of its force, so may the destroyer be conjectured and his 
discovery anticipated by the effects of his power; such, e. g., as the disappearance of 
species which, from their easier detection, capture, or bringing to bay, and greater profit 
when slain, would be the first objects of chase to the primitive Aborigines. 
Table of Localities of Fossils of Phascolomys , showing : — 
Where found. 
By whom. 
Date. 
Species. 
Breccia-cavern, Wellington Valley 
Lacustrine deposits, Victoria 
Lacustrine deposits, Queensland 
King’s Creek, Darling Downs 
Gowrie, Darling Downs 
Eton Vale, Darling Downs 
St. Jean Station, Darling Downs 
Drayton, Darling Downs 
Clifton Plains, Darling Downs 
Breccia-cavern, Wellington Valley 
Sir Thomas L. Mitchell, C.B 
E. C. Hobson, M.D 
Geo. Bennett, M.D., F.L.S 
Mr. Turner 
Ered. Neville Isaac, Esq 
Edward S. Hill, Esq 
M. Satclie St. Jean 
Sir D. Cooper, Bart 
P. Nicholson, Esq 
Prof. Thomson, and Gerard Krefft, Esq. ... 
1836 
1845 
1861 
1847 
1861 
1865 
1865 
1864 
1866 
1867 
Phascolomys Mitchelli. 
Ph. gigas. 
Ph. Mitchelli. 
Ph. parvus, Ph. rnedius. 
Ph. Mitchelli. 
f Ph. platyrhinus, Ph. rnedius, 
\ Ph. magnus, Ph. gigas. 
Ph. gigas. 
f Ph. Thomsonii, Ph. rnedius, 
\ Ph. magnus, Ph. gigas. 
Ph. gigas. 
| Ph. Mitchelli, Ph. Krefftii, 
\ Ph. latifrons, Ph. rnedius. 
* Owen, “ On Dinornis,” Part IV., Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. iv. (1850) p. 15. 
t Avtervx australis , Shaw Apteryx Ouienii, Gould. 
