From the Kalimnan Series (Lower Pliocene) of Beaumaris, Port Phillip, there was described a short time since, a remarkably well preserved specimen of Scaldicetus tooth belonging to a new form, S. macgeei ([Fig. 148]). Another species of the genus, with teeth of a slender form, has been found in the same geological series, at Grange Burn, near Hamilton. In only one other locality besides Australia does the genus occur, viz., at Antwerp, Belgium, in Crag deposits of Lower Pliocene age.
Sirenia.—
The order Sirenia (Manatees and Dugongs) is represented in the Australian Pleistocene by Chronozoön australe. The remains consist of the parietal and upper part of the occipital bones of the skull, and were discovered in the fluviatile deposits on the Darling Downs, Queensland. This fossil skull, according to De Vis, had a shallower temporal fossa and feebler masticating muscles, as well as a less highly developed brain than the existing Dugong.
Carnivora.—
The order Carnivora is represented in Australia by the Native Dog or Dingo (Canis dingo). It is by no means a settled question whether the Dingo can boast of very great antiquity. The evidence of its remains having been found under volcanic tuff beds in Victoria is not very convincing, for the original record does not indicate the precise position where the bones were found. The fact of the remains of the Dingo having been found in Cave deposits often associated with extinct marsupials, goes a good way to prove its antiquity. McCoy was strongly inclined to the view of its Pleistocene age, and points out that it shows cranial characters intermediate between the Dogs of South America and the Old World. Fossil remains of the Dingo, associated with Pleistocene mammalian forms have been recorded from the Wellington, Valley Caves, New South Wales; from the Mount Macedon Cave, near Gisborne; and in the neighbourhood of Warrnambool, Western Victoria.
Pinnipedia.—
Of the fin-footed Carnivores or Seals and Walruses, the earliest Australasian record is that of the remains of a small seal in the Okehu shell-beds near Wanganui, found in association with the bones of a small Moa-bird (Dinornis).
Newer Pliocene Seal.—
This seal was referred by Hector to Arctocephalus cinereus, a species synonymous, however, with the widely distributed living Seal, Otaria forsteri, Lesson, of the Southern Ocean. Another and larger species of eared seal allied to the living Fur Seal, Otaria forsteri, occurs in Victoria.
Pleistocene Seal.—