p 



THE EARLIEST ELEPHANT ANCESTOR 



the great ivory columns of later elephants. 

 This is the Meritherium seen in Fig 86 (No. 5), 

 and more fully exhibited in Figs. 88 and 89. 

 As is obvious at once, the skull of Meritherium 

 does not suffer from " bull-dogging " at all ; 

 there is a fine, well-developed facial region, and 

 the teeth are neither deficient in number nor 

 greatly exaggerated individually. The " den- 

 tition " (that is to say, the enumeration of the 

 complete series of teeth) approaches closely to 

 that of the central mammals with typical den- 

 tition. In the upper jaw (as shown in Fig. 88) 

 there are six front teeth or incisors, and it is 

 the second of these on each side which is enlarged 

 and is (so to speak) going to become the great 

 tusk of the elephants. In the lower jaw there 

 are four front teeth (see Fig. 87, No. 1). In the 

 upper jaw we also find a small canine or dog- 

 tooth ; next the incisors and the cheek-teeth 

 in both upper and lower jaw are fully repre- 

 sented, namely six on each side in each jaw- 

 only one short of the type-number. And yet 

 these cheek-teeth are quite obviously and recog- 

 nizably mastodon teeth. They have the trans- 

 verse ridges of the mastodon tooth (two or three) 

 and are in other features like those of mastodons. 



131 



