ELEPHANTS. 



555 



straight-Tusked The straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquum) from the Pleistocene 



Elephant. deposits of Europe, differs from the mammoth by its smaller and 

 comparatively straight tusks, and the fewer and wider plates in the molar teeth, 

 of which the crowns are generally narrow. Indeed, some of these teeth come so 

 close to those of the African elephant as to indicate the near relationship between 

 that species and the fossil one. The straight-tusked elephant ranged from 

 Yorkshire to Algeria. 



k m ^ e are so accus t°med fc° regard elephants as the giants of 



creation, that it is at first difficult to believe in the existence of a 

 species not exceeding 3 feet in height. Yet pigmy elephants (E. mnaidrien&is 

 and E. melitensis), of which the smallest is considered to have reached only 

 those diminutive proportions, were abundant in Malta and some of the neigh- 

 bouring islands during the Pleistocene period ; their remains occurring in the 

 caverns and the rock-fissures. These elephants, many of which were not larger 

 than a donkey, appear to have been closely related to the living African species, 

 and were doubtless dwarfed in size from the small area of the islands they 

 inhabited. 



southern The southern elephant (E. meridionalis), from the upper 



Elephant. Pliocene rocks of Italy and France, and also found in the forest- 

 bed on the coast of Norfolk, and at Dewlish in Dorsetshire, was the largest of all 

 the European species, its height at the shoulder having been estimated at upwards 

 of 15 feet. The molar teeth of this giant have very wide crowns, with the plates 

 very broad and widely separated from one another, and somewhat less numerous 

 than in the African species. The flat-headed elephant (E. planifrons) from the 

 Pliocene rocks of the Siwalik Hills, was an allied Indian species, distinguished 

 from all the other true elephants by the circumstance that two of the milk-molar 

 teeth were vertically replaced by premolars ; this elephant thus having eight more 

 teeth than any other species, and thereby showing evident traces of closer kinship 

 with the mastodons. 



stegodont The so-called stegodont elephants (so named from the roof-like 



Elephants, form assumed by the ridges of their molar teeth) of India and other 

 parts of South-Eastern Asia, form an exceedingly interesting group, which almost 

 completely connects the true elephants with the under-mentioned mastodons. 

 A molar tooth of one of the species of this group is represented on p. 526 ; this 

 tooth, as already mentioned, being characterised by the small number of its ridges 

 (in this instance six), which are very low and wide, with the shallow intervening 

 valleys devoid of cement. In other species of the group the ridges were, however, 

 somewhat more numerous and more elevated, while the valleys were partially 

 tilled with cement; and these serve to connect the figured Cliffs elephant with 

 species like the southern elephant. It will be observed that the tooth of Clift's 

 elephant, represented on p. 526, agrees with existing species in having the 

 transverse ridges undivided by any distinct longitudinal cleft. One of the 

 stegodont elephants (E. ganesa) is remarkable for the enormous size of its tusks, 

 those in a skull from the Siwalik Hills, preserved in the British Museum, measuring 

 Upwards of 12 feet 9 inches in length, with a maximum girth of 26 inches. 

 Representatives of this group also occur in China, Japan, and Java. 



