THESE EXTINCT SPECIES OF ELEPHANT. 287 



"De Blainville (' Osteographie,' Elcphans, pi. ix. fig. 1) has given a figure of a lower 

 jaw of a very young African Elephant, in which a pre-antepenultimate or theoretical 

 first milk-molar was developed on one side of the lower jaw ; and in the ' Fauna Antiqua 

 Sivalensis ' another example of the same Idnd is also figured*. The milk-tooth in both 

 these cases was very rudimentary ; and it is possible that the Zebbug specimen might be 

 conjectured to be an equivalent tooth. But it appears to me that this view is distinctly 

 negatived by the fiict that the Zebbug milk-molar was supported upon a large fang, and 

 that its croAvn is well worn, pro^dng that it had served an alimentary function, and that 

 it was not a case of unusual or monstrous development of a theoretical tooth which is 

 commonly suppressed. In the instances of the African Elephant above referred to, the 

 pre-antepenultimate milk-molar was restricted to one side of the lower jaw, and was not 

 developed in the upper jaw. It is difficult to say of the Malta tooth whether it 

 belonged to the upper or lower jaw. 



" Fig. 3 of the same plate represents the portion of the crovm borne upon the large 

 anterior fang of a milk-molar. It is composed of three distinct disks of wear, which 

 are very open, resembling in this respect the characters yielded by fig. 2 ; indeed they 

 are as much expanded as in the existing African Elephant. The crown is narrow in 



front, and widens very rapidly backwards, the dimensions being : — 



in. 



Width in front (of anterior ridge) O'o 



Greatest width behind 05 



Length of crown-fragment (of three front disks) 0'54 



" The anterior end of the fragment bears halfway up a distinct smooth pit, being the 

 disk of pressure against an anterior tooth that had been in contact with it. The enamel 

 plates surrounding the worn disks show no marks of crimping. It is not possible to say 

 what was the precise number of ridges entering into the composition of the cro■^^'n of 

 this tooth; but judging from a germ specimen, to be described in the sequel, it con- 

 belonged to a diminxitive species. It is a curious circumstance, however, and one well worthy of note with 

 respect to this tooth, that its fangs must have differed widely from those of the second milk-molar in all other 

 known instances, in which they are subequal in size and strongly divergent. Dr. Falconer states that there is 

 some indication of the existence of a distinct small anterior fang — though I am myself by no means satisfied of 

 this, but on the contraiy conceive that the existing fang, as shown in the figure, is in fact composed of two con- 

 nate ones. In any case it is obvious that, even had an anterior fang existed, it must have been very much 

 smaller than the posterior ; and it is equally clear, from the direction of the remaining fang, that they were not 

 divergent. Another circumstance, however, goes strongly to show that the existing fang is really a double one. 

 In the foetal mandible, represented in fig. 45, the alveoli of a small tooth immediately in front of the third milk- 

 molar remain ; and of one of these I have taken a wax cast of the interior, which shows that the fangs of the 

 tooth occupying it were also connate and non-divergent. From this circumstance, if confirmed by further 

 instances, it would seem probable, either that the true second mOk-molar, in at least one of the pigmy Elephants, 

 had connate, non-divergent fangs, or (what is perhaps equally probable) that that tooth was normally suppressed 

 and replaced by a functionally developed first milk-molar. 

 * PI. xiv. fig. 4, left side, a. 



