1907.] ELEPHAXT REMAINS FROM CRETE. 249 



Mr. Pilgrim has remarked*, it is to this adaptahility that 

 E. antiquus owed its wide geographical distribution and also its 

 continued existence through a long period of time. 



Therefore, allowing that E. creticus is a dwarfed species, the 

 question of descent is decidedly the most interesting point raised 

 by this newly discovered pigmy of Crete. Two alternative theories 

 with regard to this subject suggest themselves : — 



A. That, taking into consideration the several points of resem- 



blance, which may pi'ove to be only superficial, between the 

 molars of E. creticus and E. me7'idioncdis, the latter may be 

 the pai-ent form, in which case it must have inhabited Crete 

 contemporaneously with E. antiquus. 



B. That the Cretan race is descended from E. antiquus, which 



we think is most likely to prove the true solution of the 

 question. Some few points which appear to support this 

 may be noted here. Among these are the fact of remains 

 of this large species being found in the island and the 

 evidence which tends to show a similar ancestry for other 

 island races of the same region. 



Supposing E. creticus to be derived from E. antiquus, this would 

 necessarily mean that the former became differentiated since early 

 Pleistocene times. That this calculation would allow ample time 

 for such a change to be accomplished seems probable, when it is 

 considered that E. Cypriotes was the result of isolation for a no 

 longer period, since, according to Messrs. Bellamy and Jukes- 

 Browne t, it seems that a land-connection existed between Cyprus 

 and the mainland as late as the beginning of the Pleistocene era. 



Both from the geological evidence and from the apparently still 

 plastic condition of the small Elephants of Malta, as well as of the 

 Hippopotamus of Sicily, at the time of their extinction, it is likely 

 that these islands, more particularly the latter, have formed areas 

 of isolation for an even shorter term than Cyprus. Therefore it 

 would have been vital to the continued existence of the species 

 that the dwarfing should be accomplished as rapidly as possible ; 

 this also applies to the molars, in which the result might have 

 been attained by diminishing the height and number of the plates, 

 thus apparently to a certain extent reverting to a more simple 

 condition. A significant fact which may lend weight to this sug- 

 gestion is that, although E. ranaidriensis and E. melitensis of 

 Malta are seemingly closely connected and probably represent two 

 stages in the evolution of a pigmy from a large Elephant, yet the 

 latter has the lower ridge-formula %, although it is the smaller aiid 

 therefore, in that direction, the more specialised of the two. 



My sincere thanks are due to Dr. A. Smith Woodward, F.R.S., 



* Records Geol. Survey India, vol. xxxii. pt. 3, p. 216. 



f ' The Geologj' of Cyprus,' chap. viii. (Plymouth, 1905) ; and Bellamy, Key to 

 Geol. Map Cyprus, pp. 15, 16 (Stanford, 1905). 

 + Lydekker, Cat. Foss. Mamm. Brit. Mus. part iv. p. 151. 



