DirnOTODON. 
23d 
Genus, Diprotodoti, 1 (fossil.) 
Diprolotlon. Owkn, in the Appendix to Mitchell's Three Expedition* into 
the Interior of Australia, 8vo. 1830, vol. ii. p. 362. Report 
on the Extinct Mammals of Australia, &c. Report of the 
British Association for 1844, p. 2 23. Catal. of Fossil Organic 
Remains of Mammalia and Aves contained in the Museum of 
the Royal College of Surgeons. 
The genus Diprotoduit contains but one species, die D. 
Australis, an animal which Professor Owen judges must have 
been of superior bulk to the Rhinoceros. The species was 
originally founded upon a portion of a tusk, and a fragment of 
a jaw from Wellington Valley ; other specimens have been 
since transmitted to Professor Owen from the alluvial deposits 
in the bed of the Condamine River, 2 westward of Moroton 
Bay. and the district of Melbourne near Port Phillip, has also 
yielded some interesting fragments of the Diprotodon. 3 
Besides portions of the upper and lower jaws, which are 
clearly referable to die 1). Australis , the College collection 
contains some vertebra?, for the most part imperfect,—fragments 
1 This name has reference to the two large tusks with which the fore part of 
the lower jaw is provided. 
: The River Condamine is situated in lat. 2S' S., long. 130 E.; and Sir 
Thomas Mitchell (who has* presented to the College of Surgeons the specimens 
above referred to) remarks with regard to this river, that M it is remarkable for 
forming large basins at some places, and losing its course in swamps at others, 
and at other parts, again, cutting its course in a deep channel, through deep beds 
of olluvium, in which these bones are thus brought to light.” Catal. of Foss. 
Mamm. Ac. iu the College of Surgeons. 
3 These fragments were found by Patrick Moyne, Esq. during the operation 
of sinking a well, and are now in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, 
having been presented by Dr. llobson, of Melbourne. 
