THE POUCH-LION OF AUSTRALIA.
The Thylacoleo (Pouch-Lion) was a gigantic marsupial carnivore, whose character and affinities Professor Owen has, with exquisite scientific tact, made out from very small indications. This monster, which had kangaroos with heads three feet long to feed on, must have been one of the most extraordinary animals of the antique world.
THE CONEY OF SCRIPTURE.
Paleontologists have pointed out the curious fact that the Hyrax, called ‘coney’ in our authorised version of the Bible, is really only a diminutive and hornless rhinoceros. Remains have been found at Eppelsheim which indicate an animal more like a gigantic Hyrax than any of the existing rhinoceroses. To this the name of Acerotherium (Hornless Beast) has been given.
A THREE-HOOFED HORSE.
Professor Owen describes the Hipparion, or Three-hoofed Horse, as the first representative of a family so useful to mankind. This animal, in addition to its true hoof, appears to have had two additional elementary hoofs, analogous to those which we see in the ox. The object of these no doubt was to enable the Hipparion to extricate his foot with greater ease than he otherwise could when it sank through the swampy ground on which he lived.
TWO MONSTER CARNIVORES OF FRANCE.
A huge carnivorous creature has been found in Miocene strata in France, in which country it preyed upon the gazelle and antelope. It must have been as large as a grisly bear, but in general appearance and teeth more like a gigantic dog. Hence the name of Amphicyon (Doubtful Dog) has been assigned to it. This animal must have derived part of its support from vegetables. Not so the coeval monster which has been called Machairodus (Sabre-tooth). It must have been somewhat akin to the tiger, and is by far the most formidable animal which we have met with in our ascending progress through the extinct mammalia.—Professor Owen.
GEOLOGY OF THE SHEEP.
No unequivocal fossil remains of the sheep have yet been found in the bone-caves, the drift, or the more tranquil stratified newer Pliocene deposits, so associated with the fossil bones of oxen, wild-boars, wolves, foxes, otters, &c., as to indicate the coevality of the sheep with those species, or in such an altered state as to indicate them to have been of equal antiquity. Professor Owen had his attention particularly directed to this point in collecting evidence for a history of British Fossil Mammalia. No fossil core-horns of the sheep have yet been any where discovered; and so far as this negative evidence goes, we may infer that the sheep is not geologically more ancient than man; that it is not a native of Europe, but has been introduced by the tribes who carried hither the germs of civilisation in their migrations westward from Asia.