THREE EXTINCT SPECIES OF ELEPHANT. 261 
very closely with that of E, melitensis, except in one very important particular, which 
alone, as it seems to me, would be amply sufficient to indicate a specific distinction 
between the two forms, even had we no other bones for comparison. Had we been 
in possession of only a single specimen of the ulna of £. falconeri, its remarkabie 
character in the respect alluded. to might well have been deemed perhaps an accidental 
or individual deviation; but when we are furnished with two well-marked instances in 
bones belonging to animals of different ages, and also find that the deviation from the 
ordinary elephantine type is connected with a special characteristic of the humerus 
referred to the same species, it is impossible not to regard the character in question as 
normal, and therefore distinctive. 
One of the great peculiarities amongst the many others of the elephantine ulna, as is 
well-known, is the mode in which its articulation with the radius, more especially at the 
upper end, is effected, the comparatively diminutive head of that bone being, as it 
were, embraced between two arms or lobes of the head of the ulna, whose articular 
surface, as remarked by Blainville, thence acquires a trefoil form, the two lateral 
folioles or facets corresponding with the respective condyles of the humerus; whilst 
the central one ascends on the front of the olecranon and fits on the middle part of the 
humeral trochlea. The two lateral facets will therefore naturally differ somewhat in 
their relative dimensions, according to the size of the corresponding condyle. We 
consequently find that in the African ulna the outer facet is, as compared with the 
inner, of somewhat smaller size than in the Indian; and it has already been pointed 
out that in the ulna of H. melitensis the disparity is still greater in the same direction. 
In E. falconeri it is carried to the extreme, and it may almost be said that the outer 
foliole of the trefoil is wholly aborted, as may be seen in the figure (fig. 28 a). It 
is true that a small splinter has been broken off the external angle in front, just below 
the articulation, and also that the extreme anterior angle of the facet itself is abraded ; 
but it does not appear that either the fracture or abrasion encroaches much, if at all, 
upon the actual articular surface itself. At any rate in E. falconeri the outer facet is 
reduced to a minimum ; and it is interesting to observe with relation to this diminution 
that the outer humeral condyle, also, as compared with the inner, is smaller in that 
species than in any other with which it was compared. This abortion of the outer 
facet, and the attenuation of the corresponding part of the bone upon which it would 
be supported, give the ulna of E. falconeri so peculiar a character as, even when 
compared with that of H. melitensis, at once to strike the attention and to distinguish 
it from the corresponding bone in any other known species or form of Elephant, either 
recent or fossil *. But it is nevertheless interesting to institute some comparison between 
it and that of the Indian and African species in other particulars. Unfortunately, 
owing to the want of any other part of the bone except the upper extremity, and 
especially to the absence of the lower articular surface, which seems to afford excellent 
* The subjoined figures will convey an idea of the difference in form of the upper articular surface in 
202 
