188 MAMMALS. 



ALis, becomes the more usual representative of the Mammoth, although remains of that species are 

 sometimes found there too. South of the Apalachiau range in North America, another species, 

 E. CoLUMBi, Falc. acts the same part in that continent. 



Dr. Falconer thus describes the country which seems to have been the chief abode of this more 

 southern species: his description will be of use in relation to other families as well as this : — Between 

 the Apalachian Mountains and the Atlantic there is a wide stretch of horizontal tertiary strata forming 

 three terraces, each about twenty miles wide. The lowermost or littoral platform rises from ten to 

 forty feet above the level of the sea, and stretches at least 400 miles northward to Newbern and the 

 Neuse, in Carolina. The deposit is flu^do-marine resting upon eocene strata. Although mainly 

 marine, it contains beds of fresh-water origin, in which the Mammalian remains occur. Lyell 

 considers it to be very analogous to the great Pampean formation of South America, as described by 

 Darwin, and to be of pleistocene age. The bones are found between four and six feet below the 

 surface, imbedded in clay, resting on yeUow sand, and belonged to Megatherium, Mylodon, Mastodon, 

 Elejjhant, &c. * 



The E. CoLUMBi extends from Mexico to Georgia, including 18° of longitude and 12° of latitude 

 between the parallels of 20° and 32° N., and Falconer adds that there are gro^mds for suspecting that 

 it ranged into South America. 



No other sjjecics of the more recent epoch have been found in America, but a fragment 

 of a stupendous tooth, obtained from the upper miocene beds of Niobrara, has enabled Dr. Leidy to 

 announce another somewhat older species under the name of E. imperator, which, although the 

 fragment is insufficient for description, Dr. Leidy, with perfect warrant I thiiik, assiunes to be 

 distinct from the Mammoth, on the strength of the locality and deposit where found. No Elephant 

 has been found in any part of South America, except perhaps in Guiana, where remains of E. Coltimbi 

 are thought to have been found. 



In the Old World the great metropoKs of their kind has been India ; no less than eight species 

 being reckoned as discovered in it by Falconer, and all (except the existing species and one other) 

 belonging to the early miocene. Except a Mastodon from the Mauvaises Terres, we know of no 

 other species of Proboscidean but the Indian ones belonging to the lower miocene. And, with one 

 excejDtion, we have not yet obtained evidence that any of these siirvived, down to the uj)per miocene 

 or pliocene. 



When the rigour of the glacial ejDoch had passed and Europe had thrown off her shroud, the 

 Proboscideans returned from Asia into Europe. In Europe alone Dr. Falconer reckons six Mastodons 

 and five Elej^hants, probably most of them Arctic. All these species may not be good ; but even, 

 although they were restricted in number, sufficient would remain tp show the extension into Europe 

 of several species. 



It is natural that the great size of these most remarkable animals should add to the interest 

 with which we view them, and equally natural that when we have once got immense size fully 

 estabhshed in our minds as the tj^iical character of the race, we should feel no less interest in 

 meeting with a species contradicting its normal attributes, and while stiU an Elephant, possessing 

 in mature age no greater size than a young one. Remains of a pigmy of this kind have 

 recently been found. Dr. Falconer, in his paper on Fossil Elephants, to which I have already 

 repeatedly referred, gave a short notice of it imder the name of E. Melitensis. This pigmy 



* Falconer, op. cit. p. 60, 



