ELEPHANTID& 43 1 



both among ignorant peasants and learned academicians, will be 

 found in Nordenskiold's Voyage of the Vega (English translation, 

 vol. i. 1881, p. 398 sq.) and a series of papers in the Geological 

 Magazine for 1880 and 1881, by H. H. Ho worth, as well as in a 

 separate work on the Mammoth by the same writer. For the 

 geographical distribution and anatomical characters, see Falconer's 

 Palceontological Memoirs, voL ii. 1868 ; Boyd Dawkins, "Elephas 

 primigenius, its Eange in Space and Time," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 xxxv. p. 138 (1879); and Leith Adams, "Monograph of British 

 Fossil Elephants," part ii., Palceontographical Society (1879). 



E. antiquus, of the European Pleistocene, has a lower ridge- 

 formula than in the Mammoth, the molars being narrower, and 

 approximating to those of the African Elephant in structure. 

 Small allied forms occur in the rock-fissures and caverns of Malta, 

 and have been described as E. mnaidriensis and E. melitensis ; some 

 of the individuals of the latter not exceeding 3 feet in height. The 

 European E. meridionalis is a southern form of somewhat earlier 

 age, very common in the Upper Pliocene of Italy and France, and 

 also in the so-called Forest-bed of the Norfolk coast. It attained 

 very large dimensions, its height being estimated at upwards of 

 15 feet. The ridge -formula is lower than in E. antiquus, the 

 molars are broad, with the worn enamel-discs generally expanded 

 in the middle, and the enamel itself is crenulated. 



Elephant remains are very abundant in the Pleistocene and 

 Pliocene deposits of India, those from the latter beds being the 

 oldest representatives of the genus. Of these the Pleistocene 

 E. namadicus appears closely allied to E. antiquus, from which it is 

 distinguished by a bold ridge across the forehead. Among the Plio- 

 cene forms E. hysudricus may be an ancestral type allied to the Indian 

 Elephant ; while E. planifrons is closely related to E. meridionalis, 

 although retaining the ancestral feature of developing premolars. 



The Stegodont group is peculiar to the eastern parts of the 

 Old World, and, as already observed, connects the true Elephants 

 intimately with the Mastodons. The molars (Fig. 179, II) are 

 characterised by the lowness of the ridges, while the intervening 

 valleys may have but little cement, and there may be a more 

 or less distinct longitudinal groove in the crown dividing each 

 ridge into an inner and an outer moiety. In species like E. insignis 

 the ridge-formula is nearly the same as in E. meridionalis, but in 

 E. difti some of the molars carry only six ridges, and premolars 

 were present, so that we thus have such a complete transition to 

 the next genus that it is very difficult to know where to draw the 

 line between the two. 



Mastodon. 1 Dentition : i ^- c %, dm f , m f . Upper incisors 



1 Cuvier, Ann. du Mustum, vol. viii. p. 270 (1806). 



