152 
DAteVrnrs I.ANlAUIUS. 
I 
considerable time, and then suddenly expelled. They fire* 
quently sat on their hind parts, and used their fore paws to 
convoy food to their mouths. The muscles of the jaws were 
very strong, as they cracked the largest bones with ease 
asunder/* 
According to Mr. Gunn l , these animals commit great 
havoc among the sheep, and, notwithstanding their compara¬ 
tively small size, they are so fierce, and bite so severely, that 
they are a match for any ordinary’ dog. 
Dasy tints laninrius (Fossil). 
Although the section Sarcop/ii/us is at present confined to 
Van Diemen’s Land, such was not always the case, since 
remains of a species nearly allied to the Sarcophilu* tirsimi* 
have been found on the main land. These remains, con¬ 
sisting of portions of both jaws, and exhibiting nearly the 
whole of the molar teeth, appertained, however, to an aninwi 
of a larger size than the recent species. Two pit-molar, and 
two true molar teeth, in a fragment of nil upper jaw, in the 
Museum of the College of Surgeons, measure together one 
inch and a half, whilst the corresponding teeth in the Dasyurut , 
or S a reap ft Hits tirsin us, occupy an extent of an inch and a 
quarter only ; and a last molar tooth of a lower jaw of the 
fossil Dasyure, measures from front to back seven and a half 
lines, being two and a half lines more tlinn the hinderraost 
molar of D . ttrsint/s . 
All the fragments referred to, were found in the caves of 
Wellington Valley, and are described by Prof. Owen, some of 
tlttfm in Mitchell’s Eastern Australia, vol. ii. p. 3fi3, and 
the remainder in the Catalogue of the Fossil Organic lb-mains 
contained in the Museum of the Koval College of Surgeons. 
1 Annals of Natural History, vol. i. j». 101. 
