The geographical distribution of animals, with a study of the relations ...

CHAPTER VIII.VARIOUS EXTINCT ANIMALS;—AND ON THE ANTIQUITYGENEEA OF INSECTS AND LAND MOLLUSCA.OF THEEXTINCT MAMMALIA OF AUSTRALIA.These have all been obtained from caves and late Tertiary orPost-Tertiary deposits, and consist of a large number of extinctforms, some of gigantic size, but all marsupials and allied to theexisting fauna. There are numerous forms of kangaroos, somelarger than any living species ;and among these are two genera,Protemnodon and Sthenurus, which Professor Garrod has latelyshown to have been allied, not to any Australian forms, but tothe Dmdrolagi or tree-kangaroos of New Guinea. We havealso remains of Thylacinus and Dasyurus, which now only existin Tasmania ; and extinct species of Hypsiprymnus and Phasco-Among the more remarkablelomys, the latter as large as a tapir.extinct genera are Diprotodon, a huge thick-limbed animalallied to the kangaroos, but nearly as large as an elephant;Nototherivm, having characters of Macropus and Phascolarctoscombined, and as large as a rhinoceros ; and Thylacoho, a phaianger-likemarsupial nearly as large as a lion, and supposed byProfessor Owen to have been ofopinion isnot held by other naturalists.Here then we find the same phenomena as incarnivorous habits, though thisthe other countrieswe have already discussed,—the very recent disappearanceof a large number of peculiar forms, many of them far surpassingin size any that continue to exist. It hardly seems probablethat in this case their disappearance can have been due to thedirect effects of the Glacial epoch, since no very extensive glacia-