8 NOTE ON ELEPHAS MERIDIONALIS. 



coarse loam with angular debris of Portland and Purbeck beds, 

 together with a considerable number of blocks of hard Sarsen 

 stones, underlain by a layer of waterborne rounded pebbles, and in a 

 matrix of sand red-loam, mixed with peroxide of manganese ; the 

 pebbles were perfectly clean and polished surface. In the lower 

 part of the deposit numerous mammalian remains were found, 

 including a large number of teeth of elephants. Mr. Busk 

 identified a well marked molar- of Elephas antiquus and fragments, 

 apparently of the Mammoth. Another molar, belonging to R. 

 Damon, Esq., F.G.S., is kindly lent to us to-day for exhibition. I 

 had the good fortune to accompany Professor Prestwich during t 

 his examination of this interesting deposit. 



ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. 



The Mammoth. This, like E. antiquus, comes under Doctor 

 Falkner's subgenus, Eu-Elephas. It is the most interesting of all 

 the extinct Elephants, owing to its having co-existed with man, 

 as is proved by the implements and utensils of human manufac- 

 ture found with its remains. M. Mortillet describes the figure 

 of a Mammoth engraved on the beam of a reindeer's horn from 

 Montastruc, near Bruniquel, Department of the Tarn et Garonne, 

 France, which served as the handle of a poignard. Its head is 

 lowered, and the trunk lies perpendicularly between the fore-legs ; 

 the tusks form a support to the blade of the poignard, the tail 

 has a thick, bushy tip, which, as M. Mortillet adds, would be 

 the case of an animal covered as the Mammoth was with hair and 

 wool. The Mammoth stands pre-eminent among its congeners in 

 the wideness of its distribution. Its lighter frame and more pliable 

 constitution rendered it capable of surviving the vicissitudes of 

 climate to which it was subjected, and to which Elephas merulio- 

 nalis and Elephas antiquus succumbed. It passed through the 

 whole of the Glacial Period, and of the Elephant family was the 

 only contemporary of man. Its remains are found in the Old 

 World from the extreme North of Siberia to the farthest parts of 

 Western Europe. It has been reported from Portugal, rarely from 



