244 PROBOSCIDIA. 
established the unity of species to which those varieties 
belong. 
If, on the other hand, the observed varieties in the den- 
tition of the Mammoth are to be interpreted, as Par- 
kinson, Nesti, Croizet, V. Meyer and others have done, 
as evidences of distinct species, we must be prepared to 
admit not merely three, but six or more distinct species 
of gigantic Mammoths to have roamed through the pri- 
meval swamps and forests of England. 
Tusks.—All the tusks of the Elephas primigenius from 
British strata which have fallen under my observation 
in a sufficiently complete state for the comparison, possess 
the same extensive double curvature as the tusks of the 
great Mammoth, from the icy cliff at the mouth of the river 
Lena in Siberia, which is figured at the head of the present 
section, and as those brought to England by Captain 
Beechey from Eschscholtz Bay, which have been figured 
by Dr. Buckland, and are now in the British Museum. 
They arrange themselves in two groups according to 
size, the larger tusks averaging about nine feet and a 
half, the smaller ones from five to six feet in length ; 
the latter are readily distinguishable by their greater de- 
gree of curvature from the incompletely developed tusks 
of the larger kind, when of the same length as the smaller 
fully developed tusks. It is most probable, therefore, from 
the analogy of the Asiatic Elephant, that the larger tusks 
belonged to the male sex, and the smaller ones to the 
female; which, however, if this idea be correct, possessed 
better developed tusks than the female Asiatic Elephant, 
in which the tusks either do not appear beyond the lip, 
or project a short way straight down from the mouth, as 
in both sexes of the variety called ‘ Mooknah.’* 
* See Corse in Philos. Trans. 1799, p. 208. 
