224 
PEOFESSOE OWEN ON THE FOSSIL MAMMALS OF AUSTEALIA. 
teeth of Tkylacoleo from the Breccia-cave of W ellington Valley, in the series above 
referred to. 
No. 10 gives two views of a portion of the right ramus (the outside view is given in 
Plate XIII. fig. 1). It is similar to the fossil from Queensland above described (Plate 
XII.), but more mutilated at the back part. The chief value of the specimen photo- 
graphed is the retained incisor (i), from which only the apex of the crown is wanting, 
by an oblique fracture from above and behind downward and forward. In a photograph 
of a more mutilated mandible (ib. fig. 2), the inner wall of the alveolus of the incisor 
is broken away as far as the vertical line dropped from the fore part of the carnassial 
(j) 4). The outer wall remains a few lines in advance of this in the subject of figure 1, 
but sufficient of the cement- covered root of the tooth is exposed to show a commencing 
contraction toward its implanted end. The incisor is directed upward at an angle of 
130° with the long axis of the ramus, and the crown shows a curvature with the convexity 
forward and downward as in the lower laniaries of Thylacinus ; the hind border is not 
straight or convex like the answerable upper border in the same tooth of Bettongia 
and Hypsiprymnus , but is serrato-trenchant and slightly concave lengthwise. A photo- 
graphic view giving the transverse breadth or thickness of the incisor would have been 
instructive ; but the portion of the tooth retained in the mandibular ramus figured in 
Plate XII. fig. 1, i, a, shows the more essential distinction from the long procumbent 
lower incisors of the herbivorous Marsupials in the degree of lateral compression of 
the crown and its proportion to the antero-posterior breadth, which in the laniary of 
Tkylacoleo is intermediate between that in Machairodus and Fells. 
The two anterior outlets of the dental canal are present, and in the same position in 
the cave-fossil (Plate XIII. fig. 1, 0) as in the Queensland specimen (Plate XII. fig. 1, 0 ). 
The postero-inferior emargination of the symphysial surface is repeated on the inner 
surface of the ramus of the subject of fig. 1, Plate XIII., as in Plate XII. fig. 2, r. 
All the characters of the carnassial tooth (p 4) in the Queensland specimen are closely 
repeated ; the crown is abraded in the same direction and to the same extent. 
The crown of the first molar ( m 1) is preserved in both the cave-specimens photo- 
graphed, showing its raised, anterior, subtrenchant lobe, and its small low hind tuber- 
cular talon. On the outer side of this tooth is shown the subvertical surface formed by 
attrition against the hind part of the upper carnassial. The proportions of the anterior 
and posterior roots of m 1 are indicated in the photograph of the inner side of the subject 
of fig. 1, Plate XIII. The socket of the minute p 3 (ib.) plainly appears on the inner 
side of that for the anterior root of p 4 in the same photograph ; but the shallower and 
larger ones of p 2 and p 1 have left no impression — were probably obliterated in the 
fossil. There can be no doubt as to the specific identity of the Wellington Valley 
cave-fossils with those of Tkylacoleo carnifex from Melbourne (Lake Colungoolac) and 
from Queensland (Gowrie Creek). 
The second fossil of Tkylacoleo from the breccia-cave, the subject of the photograph 
