vili Preface. 



nounced by Temminck in his Survey of the Dutch posses- 

 sions ill the Indian Archipelago,'^ that the elepliant which 

 abounds in Sumatra (although unknown in the adjacent 

 island of Java), and which had theretofore been regarded 

 as identical in species with the Indian one, has been 

 found to possess peculiarities, in which it differs as much 

 from the elephant of India as the latter does from its 

 African congener. On this new species, to which the 

 natives give the name of ''^gadjah" Temminck has 

 conferred the scientific designation of the Elephas ^z/wa- 

 tranus. The points which entitle it to this disti;iction 

 he enumerates minutely in the work- before alluded to, 

 and they have been summarized as follows by Prince 

 Lucien Bonaparte. 



" This species is perfectly intermediate between the 

 Indian and African, especially in the shape of the skull, 

 and will certainly put an end to the distinction between 

 Elephas and Loxodon, with those who admit that ana- 

 tomical genus ; since although the crowns of the teeth of 

 E. Sumatranus are more like the Asiatic animal, still the 

 less numerous undulated ribbons of enamel are nearly 

 quite as wide as those forming the lozenges of the African. 

 The number of pairs of false ribs (which alone vary, the 

 true ones being always six) is fourteen, one less than in 



' Coup tTCEil general sur les ^ Temminck, Coup d'CEil, etc. 



Possessions Ne'erlandaises dans Vlnde t. i. civ. p. 328 j t. ii. c. iii. p. 91. 

 Archlpelagique. 



