NOfE ON BLBPHAS MERIDIONALIS. 5 



It is probable that not more than one species of Elephant occupied 

 one district at the same time, and the district must have been 

 extensive. The supply of food they required must have been 

 enormous, and no district could have maintained two species of 

 such large animals, whose habits are gregarious and their food 

 similar ; if we draw an analogy from our own experience at 

 the present day, we find only one species of Elephant, 

 Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Camel, Giraffe, Ostrich, or Crocodile, in 

 any one given district. A similar law doubtless existed in geological 

 times. The comparatively meagre flora of the Forest-bed, as 

 determined by Heer, in which the three species of Elephants 

 occur leads us to a similar conclusion. 



ELEPHAS MERIDIONALIS.* 



Although a contemporary with Eleplias dntiquus and the 

 Mammoth, it appeared at an earlier period than either. It is desig- 

 nated by Ncste as being the most ancient elephant. Until 

 the discovery of its remains at Dewlish it had been only knoAvn as 

 occurring in the Forest-bed of the eastern coast. Its European 

 distribution, however, extended through the northern, central, and 

 southern Departments of France, and with the exception of some 

 notifications of it in Xorthern Italy and South-eastern Europe, there 

 are not any well authenticated records of it elsewhere in Europe. It 

 is found with Mastodon in the Valley of the Arno and in Piedmont, 

 also on the north side of the Alps. In the Pliocene alluvium of St. 

 Prest in France it is the only Elephant ; this is the case in corre- 

 sponding beds in the Departments of the Gard and of the Herault, 

 and in the sub-volcanic Pliocene alluvium beds of the Auvergne 

 and of Velay, where the Mastodon also occurs, but in a lower 

 horizon. Eleplias meridionalis exceeded the two other British 

 Elephants both in size and height. It stood 17 feet from the 

 withers, its limbs were enormous, as may be supposed, to enable 

 them to carry such a weighty bulk. Being a Pliocene animal, it 



* 0. Fisher, " Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society," vol. xliv., 

 p. 818, 1888. 



