230 MR. BUSK ON THE REMAINS OF 
of more than one dwarf species. Further attentive examination and comparison of the 
bones has only served to confirm this impression ; and I hope in the following pages to 
be able to show that the Zebbug proboscidian remains, strange as it may seem, embrace 
those of not less than three species, two of which must be regarded as pigmy or dwarf 
forms (though one probably exceeded the other in size), whilst the larger one equalled 
in stature the smaller forms of the existing African or Asiatic species. It will 
doubtless be regarded as a remarkable circumstance that the distinction between the 
two smaller forms should have escaped the penetrating and long-experienced eye of Dr. 
Falconer ; but I think this may be readily explained by the consideration that, so far as 
his notes show, he had not as yet entered upon the critical study of the bones of the 
skeleton, but had confined himself to that of the teeth alone, parts to which, as is well 
known, he attached such paramount importance in the study of the Proboscidia, And 
I have little doubt that, had he lived to resume his investigation of the Maltese fossils, 
which for the last two years or more had been completely interrupted by the attention 
he had devoted to the fossil remains from Gibraltar, he would, on turning to the bones 
of the skeleton, have become aware of the existence of more than one “ pigmy” Elephant. 
But under the circumstances, and having convinced myself of the existence of two 
such forms, I have felt some doubt as to the names that should be given to them. Both 
cannot of course be FE. melitensis of Falconer; and I propose therefore to limit that 
name to the larger of the two small forms, and to designate the other by the name of 
one to whom paleontology, especially as regards fossil proboscidia, is so deeply indebted, 
and to term it HL. falconeri. 
As regards the large form associated with E. melitensis and E. falconeri, there are not 
in the present collection, as it appears to me, sufficient materials for the drawing of an 
accurate comparison between it and several other extinct species; and I shall therefore 
not venture at present to suggest any name for it, preferring to leave this in suspense 
until better-marked remains of its teeth and other parts may justify its being either 
referred to some already described species, or distinguished definitively from all with 
which we are at present acquainted. Reasons will perhaps be apparent, in what 
follows, for the suggestion that it may be identical with /. antiquus; but the evidence as 
yet in our possession is far too scanty to allow of this being affirmed with any degree of 
certainty *. 
The collection, I would remark, is made up partly of the bones of adult, and partly 
of those of young or even, perhaps, foetal animals; and these immature bones, like the 
mature ones, are plainly divisible into three sets, each of which it is fair to assume 
belongs to one or other of the adult forms indicated by the mature bones. No diffi- 
culty, of course, exists in referring the young bones of the large form to their proper 
place ; but with respect to the other two, owing to their much nearer correspondence in 
size, the question of allotment is not so easily settled, and I am quite willing to believe 
* Vide note, p. 227. 
