116 MR. A. L. ADAMS ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF 
allowances for individual differences of age and sex, I believe that the bones of the 
Maltese fossil elephants are divisible into three varieties and two well-marked species, 
viz. a large and a small Elephant, the latter showing two forms represented by the 
Elephas melitensis of Falconer and Busk, which may have seldom attained a height of 5 
feet, and a diminutive or pygmy form named by Mr. Busk Elephas falconeri, the smallest 
bones of which indicate an elephant about 3 feet in height. But there are intermediate- 
sized bones which easily bridge over the differences between the latter and the Elephas 
melitensis; nevertheless Mr. Busk has pointed out characters appertaining to the two, 
and is of opinion that they are distinct species’. 
Finally the presence of a much larger species of Elephant among the Zebbug remains 
has been clearly pointed out by Falconer and Busk; but the bones were very fragmentary 
and of little use for anatomical descriptions. It has been my good fortune to bring to- 
‘gether abundant remains of apparently the same Elephant, the characters of which are 
as minutely detailed in the preceding pages as it has been in my power to accomplish. 
I believe they represent the entire dentition and osteology of the greater portion of the 
skeleton of an Elephant of considerably smaller dimensions than the living species, and 
seldom exceeding 7 feet in height, whilst the average height may have been between 6 
and 7 feet. Thus, probably, the two species displaying the variability as to size which 
we see common among heads of the two recent Elephants, often approached the limits 
of each other’s growth; and, as otherwise there was not any very marked distinction, it 
would be difficult to decide the proper place for such remains; hence it may be that 
here and there I have referred bones to the small species which belong to small-sized 
individuals of the former. This, however, does not appear of much moment in com- 
parison with the data descriptive of the molars and largest bones, which afford unquestion- 
able evidence of a distinct species. 
I have named the largest Elephant Elephas mnaidriensis, in consideration of the 
circumstance that the gap, or rock-rent, from which I obtained the most perfect 
specimens of its bony structure is situated close to the ruins of the Mnaidra temple, a 
prehistoric and megalithic structure bearing evidences of the earliest human occupa- 
tion of the Island of Malta. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 
PLATE I. 
Figs. 1 & 2. First milk-incisors of Llephas mnaidriensis and E. melitensis: p. 8. Zebbug 
Cave and Mnaidra Gap. 
Figs. 3, 4, 5 & 6. Second or antepenultimate milk-molars of the Maltese Elephants : 
p. 11-12. Mnaidra Gap; fig. 6, Benghisa Gap. 
’ Trans. Zool. Soc. vi. pp. 235 & 251. 
