ABOUT ELEPHANTS. 



497 



particulars, while some authorities have been even found to suggest 

 that it represents a connecting link between the elephants and the sea- 

 cow or manatee order (Sirenia). The tusks of dinotherium spring 

 from the lower jaw (Fig. 4) ; and instead of being curved forward 

 and upward, they bend abruptly downward and backward. The use 

 of these tusks is extremely difficult to determine, but it has been sug- 

 gested that the dinotherium was an aquatic animal, living in shallow 

 waters, and that these huge teeth may have enabled it to root up the 

 plants on which it fed, or have enabled it to climb, as does the living 

 walrus, from the sea on to the river-banks. 



Fig. 4. Restoration of Dixothzrittm. 



In addition to these latter elephants, which are essentially distinct 

 from the living species, certain extinct forms may be mentioned 

 which, in their essential characteristics, resembled existing proboscid- 

 ians more or less closely. Thus, we know that elephants closely 

 related to the Indian species existed in Asia in Miocene times, the 

 remains of at least six species being obtained from Indian deposits of 

 that age ; and we also know that Europe boasted of elephants in that 

 period of geology known as the " Pliocene " ; for in the deposits of 

 France and Italy, as well as in the formations of that age in Britain, 

 elephant remains occur. Later in point of time come the curious 

 " pygmy elephants " of Malta, whose remains exist in that island, and 

 whereof one (Elephas Melitensis) attained the size of a donkey, while 

 another [Elephas Falconeri) was smaller still, and averaged two and 

 a half or three feet in height. 



The geological order and the succession in time of these various 

 elephants is important to trace ; for the unraveling of so much of the 

 past history of the elephants as is known to us depends upon the 

 knowledge of their succession and of the periods of their appearance 

 and extinction. If we tabulate the rocks wherewith the past of the 

 elephants is concerned, we may render their arrangement clear thus : 



Quaternary 



{ 



Recent (Soils, etc.). 



Tertiary Rocks I p LI0CEXE) ~~~ 7 ( Post-Pliocene (Ice Age), 

 including 



Miocene, 

 ^ Eocene, 



vol. xxi. 32 



