FALCONER ON THE AMERICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 
97 
&c., have dwindled down into their small-sized living representatives. 
But except in bulk, and in the extinction of certain types, there is 
no indication that the modern fauna has degenerated from a higher 
to a lower grade of organization. To this general rule there is only 
one asserted exception, which, however, is of a very important order, 
being the so-called Mastodon Australis of Prof. Owen. I have long 
entertained doubts regarding the authenticity of the solitary molar 
tooth, upon which the conclusion mainly rests. These I have already 
advanced in an abridged form ;* * * § but as the assertion has since then 
been repeated by its author, it is full time that the case should be 
either established or confuted, more especially as the asserted excep¬ 
tion, coming forth under the authority of so eminent a name, has 
been commonly adopted by Palaeontologists. 
In 1843, Professor Owen published the description and figure of 
a fossil femur of large size, discovered by Sir Thomas L. Mitchell in 
Darling Downs, S. W. of Moreton Bay, in Australia.! It was com¬ 
pared with the corresponding bone of Mastodon giganteus , and in¬ 
ferred to be of a Mastodontoid quadruped. But a perfect femur of 
Miprotodon Australis , acquired within the last few years for the Bri¬ 
tish Museum, along with an entire cranium and other fine remains, 
places it beyond doubt, that the Darling Downs specimen, now pre¬ 
served in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, is of the Marsupial 
Miprotodon, and not of any Proboscidian form. 
In the following year (1844), the same author published a figure 
and description of 4 a fossil molar tooth of a Mastodon discovered by 
Count Strzlecki in Australia,’ which he provisionally named M. Aus¬ 
tralis ; and he describes it as bearing a close resemblance to the 
molars of ML. angustidens of Europe. J In his report 4 on the Fossil 
Mammalia of Australia,’ communicated to the British Association in 
1844, the following paragraph occurs: 
44 I cannot conclude, without adverting to the singular exception 
44 which the Mastodon forms to the continental localization, not only 
44 of existing, but of Pliocene and post-Pliocene extinct genera of 
44 mammalia above briefly dwelt upon. The solitary character of the 
44 exception helps rather to establish the generalization, at least I 
44 know of no other extinct genus of mammal which was so cosmopo- 
44 litan as the Mastodon. It was represented by species for the most 
44 part very closely allied, if actually distinct, in Europe, in Asia, in 
44 North and South America, and in Australia; it is the only abori- 
44 ginal genus of quadruped in that continent which was represented 
44 by other species in other parts of the world. ”§ Here is an excep¬ 
tion, the importance of which, if sound, can hardly be overrated, in 
reference to the laws which governed the distribution of the extinct 
* Quarterly Journ. Geo. Soc. Yol. xiii p. 319, Synop. Table, 
t Annals and Mag. of Nat. History, New Ser. Vol. xi. p. 8, fig. 1. 
% Op. cit. Vol. xiv. p. 268. 
§ British Association Report, 1844. pp. 223, 239. 
N. II. R.—1863. H 
