66 ME. A. L. ADAMS ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF 



If this should tura out to be the case, at all events the last described is more like the 

 Asiatic ; but perhaps the left is never so broad as the right. 



XI. Cakpus. 



Scaphoid. — In an articulated skeleton of a youthful Asiatic Elephant in the Mu- 

 seum of the Army Hospital, Netley, the first true molar is coming into wear, and 

 about 1 foot of the incisor is protruding beyond the alveolus. The height of the 

 animal seems to have been about 6 -5 feet at the shoulder. The scaphoid in this 

 instance shows distinctly the two points of ossification separated by a central mass of 

 cartilage, the length of the bone being 2'8 inches. Again, in a disarticulated Ceylon 

 Elephant (707 A, B.M.), showing the last milk-molar in full wear, and a computed 

 height of 5 feet at the withers, we find precisely the same condition of the scaphoid, 

 which is 2'6 inches in length. Thus, whilst showing the unossified stage in the recent 

 animal, they offer comparisons in this respect with the Maltese scaphoids, which, 

 although of the same dimensions, show no traces whatever of the foetal condition. A 

 comparison between the same bone in the African and Asiatic furnishes the following 

 data, at least as far as a single instance of the former enables me to determine. The 

 outlines are different as regards the contour of the posterior border, which forms a 

 hog's-back outline in the African and Mammoth, and is more or less perpendicular in 

 the Asiatic, where it is relatively narrower at its middle. Again, the radial facet, as 

 shown by Blainville', is nearly perpendicular in the latter and Mammoth, and nearly 

 horizontal in the African. The trapezoidal and magnal facets form a triangle in the 

 African, and are slightly concave. In the Asiatic and Mammoth the same are apparent 

 on the magnal aspect; but the entire articular surface is quadrilateral and slightly 

 convex about the middle, and oval at the summit, which is rather concave. These 

 facets in both recent animals and Mammoth rise up the side of a protuberance on the 

 lunare aspect, forming in the African a contmuous articular surface where the facets of 

 the different bones are not so defined as in the Asiatic and Mammoth. In my collec- 

 tion there are two adult scaphoids somewhat differing in size, outline, and arrangement 

 of their facets. 



1. The largest (PI. XVII. fig. 10) is entire, with the exception of the anterior 

 portion of the radial and almost the entire lunare facets, also a portion of the posterior 

 inferior angle. The specimen has also sustained two fractures obliquely across its 

 middle, which, however, do not interfere with the outline of the bone. The importance 

 of this integral part in the motivity of the foot is calculated to be infiuenced by the 

 animal's habits, as would of course the more anterior long bones ; hence the necessity of 

 a careful survey of these portions of the extremities. The following are the dimensions 

 of the one in question : — Entire length 3"2 inches, greatest breadth (at the middle) 2'6^ ; 



' ' Osteographie,' Atlas, iii. pi. v. 



° This specimen agrees with the dimensions of the scaphoid of the youthful skeleton (2677 a, E. C. S.), the 

 dimensions of the Sumatran (B. M.) being 3'7 by 2o inches. 



