THE STORY OF THE ELEPHANTS 267 



are reduced in number. The canines and the first premolars are 

 lost. The lower jaw is considerably elongated. We begin to see 

 signs of a trunk. Now, this creature probably looked like a rather 

 long-necked elephant (see Plate XLV.), but its trunk was not 

 flexible, being supported by the long lower jaw, for which it partly 

 formed a covering. Probably it could reach the ground with its 

 lower incisors, and the end of the snout may have been prehensile. 

 In size it was about as big as a half-grown Indian Elephant. 

 Now, in the next stage, represented by Tetrabelodon augustidens 



FIG. 103. Skull and lower jaw of Elephas (Stegodori) ganesa, from Lower 

 Pliocene of Sivalik Hills, N. India. 



(see Fig. 102), we have something much more like an Elephant. 

 To begin with, it is bigger. Then see how much more elongated 

 is the lower jaw. The upper incisors have greatly increased in 

 size ; only two molars are left in each jaw. The opening for the 

 nose is further back. Plate XL VI. is a restoration. In size this 

 creature also resembled the Elephant, being about as big as a 

 moderate-sized elephant of the present day. In the later Miocene 

 period this long lower jaw got shortened, and so an approach was 

 made to the modern type. Fig. 103 shows us the last stage in 

 this strange history, when the lower jaw rather suddenly contracted 



