“Nototherium tasmanicum 
(Part 2.) 
OSTEOLOGICAL AXD COMPARATIVE. 
Bv H. H. Scott, Curator of the Victoria Museum, Launceston. 
In a paper in collaboration with my friend, Mr. K. M. 
Harrisson, I partly outlined through the pages of the Tasmanian 
Naturalist (i) the osteology of the first Nototherium discovered 
off the mainland of Australia. Although that paper did not profess 
to exhaust the subject, I hoped that I had supplied sufficient proof 
of the specific distinction of the specimen to justify the name 
conferred upon it. viz.. ” Nototherium tasmanicum.” 
In the following November, however. Dr. Fritz Xoetling con¬ 
tributed a recapitulative paper to the Tasmanian Royal Society (2), 
in which he says:—“The characteristics on which this fourth 
species is established are altogether unsatisfactory." In this 
numeration of species Dr. Xoetling is following the text of Jack 
and Etheridge’s Palaeontology of Queensland, and the species 
alluded to are as follows:— 
1. Nototherium mitchelli. (Owen’s type.) 
2. Nototherium inerme. (Owen.) 
3. Nototherium dunense. (De Vis.) 
And, lastly, my species, tasmanicum. But, as I pointed out in my 
paper, the species victorias of Owen should now he. in my opinion, 
number two upon the list, as it is pretty clear to-day that 
“ inerme" was founded upon immature characters (3), and there¬ 
fore it cancels itself; while victoriae has some claim as a species, 
as I yet hope to show. 
In his Catalogue of the British Museum Fossil Mammals, 
Vol. 5, Lydck ker merges victoriae into the type, upon the grounds 
(1) The Tasmanian Naturalist, Vol. 2. No. 4. April. 1911. 
(2) The occurrence of gigartic marsupials in Tasmania. Royal 
Society, Nov. 14. 1911. By Fritz Noetling, M.A., Ph.D. 
(3) It is only fair to state that Professor Flower considered the 
species inerme was founded upon a mandible that had been broken off at 
the symphysis, and afterwards so ground down that the sockets of the 
tusks had been obliterated. Vide Cat. Ost. Royal Col. Surgeons, page 732. 
