(E. indicus). Both of these doubtless originated from a common 



stuck, from the Siwalik Hills of India, E. hysudricus. Since traces 

 of the mammoth are also found, it is interesting to note the origin 

 in southeastern Asia and to contemplate their migration to the north 

 into Siberia, to the west into Europe, to the southwest into Africa 

 and to the northeast along the Asiatic coast, across the Behring Chan- 

 nel, and thence in every direction over AJierica. It is again interesting 

 to learn that the living elephants of India and Africa have sprung 

 from the mastodon of India, yet they were confined to India and 

 only their nearly related progeny spread ou1 over the world. The 

 elephants commenced their more recent history in the Pliocene time 

 in India and thence spread through northern AJrica and Europe 

 during Pleistocene times. 



The elephants of India and Africa are the living representatives 

 of the group of largest land forms known to history. This group 

 is characterized by the presence of proboscis from which these 

 ungulates are named Proboscidea. Of this group the family Ele- 

 phantidea includes three genera, elephants, mastodons and mammoths. 

 The elephants are readily recognized by their cheek teeth which have 

 the form of more or less elevated parallel plates filled in between 

 with cement. There is a species of elephant, a Pliocene fossil of 

 Asia, which presents teeth with plates comparatively low, numerous 

 and with little cement tilling. This therefore stands as a connect- 

 ing link between ancient mastodons and the elephants of today. 



The elephant has forty-four teeth, eleven in each half of each 

 jaw. While there are randy more than this number, yet it is in 

 cases greatly reduced — even to zero as in the ant-bears where the 

 jaws are toothless. Since the individual grinders are greatly enlarged, 

 and all others are lost save two grinders in each half jaw, and 

 the second pair of incisors above, the number seems to be reduced 

 to six in the elephant. The real number is greater than this. The 

 tooth begins its growth in the rear of each jaw and gradually moves 

 forward, (as shown by Sir Richard Owen) in the arc of a circle 

 gradually replacing the preceding one as it wears away by use, 

 until finally this older tooth is shoved from the jaw and the new 

 one is in full service. Owen's dental formula for the modern ele- 



2-2 6-6 



phant is given thus: Incisors, ^ Molars, ( ._ ( . which means 



That there are two tusks in each upper jaw, the milk set being 

 replaced by the permanent one, and the lower jaw wanting in these 

 which in one of the fossil forms of mastodon are present. This 

 formula further means that there are altogether six grinders in 

 each jaw, the first milk teeth appearing at the age of two weeks 

 and she<l at two years. 



The second is shed at six years, the third at nine, the fourth 

 at twenty to twenty-live, the fifth at sixty and the sixth lasts the 

 remainder of the creatine's life, at least to the age of 100 or 120 

 years. With this data of Prof. Owen's in mind, it is intensely inter- 

 esting to examine the dentitions of a young mastodon in which the 

 full milk dentition of three well-formed cheek teeth is present, with 

 the remarkable ta.-t id' the first permanent tooth just cutting the 

 gums from below and behind the third milk grinders. Thus if the 

 cutting of tilth of the modern elephant can be taken as fairly 

 typical ")' the same process in mastodons, then the specimen is of 

 a young mastodon, less than nine years of age. What a baby! 

 A pathetic scene must have occurred here, for the remains of both the 

 mother and the baby were found not over ten feet apart in the 

 beds. The mother seemed farther on and in from the bank than 



47 



