1X BEHEMOTH 229 
stumpy appendage). “ Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth 
not” is surely much more suggestive of the copious draughts of 
an Elephant than the possibly equally copious but not so visible 
libations of a Hippopotamus. 
The most ancient of the true Elephants (genus Hlephas) is 
EH. meridionalis. It is of the African type, 7.e. the plates of the 
molar teeth are not abundant, and are not so many as in the 
existing £. africanus. It seems to have been one of the largest of 
Elephants, standing 4 metres high. Its remains are abundant in 
Europe, and are known also from England. Like this species 
E. antiquus is also of the African type. It was contemporary 
with man. Certain dwarf or “pony” races found in caves in 
Malta, and called Hlephas melitensis or E. falconert, are believed 
to belong to this species. Mr. Leith Adams, who described these ; 
remains, placed them in two dwarf species called by the names 
used above, and found associated with them a larger form, which 
he referred to H. antiquus. The existence of these animals in 
Malta seems to argue at least its former larger dimensions, and 
the presence of more abundant fresh water. The remarkable 
swimming capabilities of the Elephant do not necessarily imply 
either a former absence of land connexion or, on the other hand, 
its existence. Nor as a third possibility can it be suggested that 
the dwarf size argues an island of limited dimensions, when we 
bear in mind the huge tortoises of the Galapagos and some other 
islands. It is important to notice that Elephants of the African 
type (Lowodon) were not formerly absent from India. 2. planifrons 
was one of these. 
The genus Stfegodon is so called from the fact that the molar 
teeth, seen in longitudinal section, present a series of roof-shaped 
folds, the interstices between which are not, or are, imperfectly 
filled up with the cement which in Hlephas reduces the surface of 
the teeth to a level plane. This genus is exclusively Asiatic, and 
is Miocene to Pleistocene in time range. The number of ridges 
on the molars is small, not more than two. The incisors (tusks) 
have no enamel; the skeleton generally is like that of Hlephas, 
between which and Mastodon the present genus is intermediate. 
Among the four or five species is S. ganesa (called after the Indian 
Elephant-headed divinity), with tusks 10 feet long, to be seen at 
the British Museum of Natural History. 
* Trans. Zool. Soc. ix. 1874, p. 1. 
