338 Br. H. Woodward — ISfotes on Elephas ganesa. 



This group, he tells us. forms the nearest approach to the Mastodons ; 

 indeed, Clift gave them the designation of Mastodon elephantoides. 

 A fragment of one of the teeth, denuded of its coat of cement, and 

 seen by a naturalist for the first time, would at once be referred to 

 Mastodon rather than to Elephas. But when the essential characters 

 are analyzed, the species are seen to partake more of the nature 

 of true elephants. 



Writing on the characters of the Stegodons, Falconer observes : 

 " Sir Proby Cautley and myself have thought we could distinguish 

 four species of Stegodon — namely, S. Cliftii, S. bombi/rons, S. insignis, 

 and S. ganesa." 



In his Catalogue of the Fossil Mammals in the British Museum 

 (Natural History), 1886, part iv, p. 88, E. Lydekker writes: — 

 "The third true molars in the type cranium of this species contain 

 ten ridges, and thereby agree with the corresponding teeth of 

 E. insignis rather than of E. hombifrons, a conclusion confirmed by 

 a second cranium, in which there appear to be either ten or eleven 

 ridges in the same tooth. This close resemblance between the last 

 molar of this form and of E. insignis renders it apparently impossible 

 to draw any distinction between the earlier teeth of the two forms, 

 and all such teeth are therefore referred to the latter. Falconer had 

 considerable doubts as to the specific distinctness of the present 

 form, and as the resemblance between the type cranium and the 

 young cranium of E!. insignis indicates that the two are closely 

 related, it is possible that EJ. ganesa may be the male form of 

 EJ. insignis." "The adult cranium," he adds, "does not differ very 

 widely from the type of -E". indiciis, although the frontal constriction 

 is less marked." This last observation was probably due to the 

 former unnatural position in which the skull of E. ganesa was 



Figure showing the original position of the skull of Elephas ganesa (reduced to 

 3-2- nat. size), as formerly mounted in the Geological Gallery of the British 

 Museum (Natural History), after Prof. A. Gaudry's " Les Enchainements du 

 Monde Animal," 8vo, 1878. The present position of the skull is shown iu 

 PI. XIV, Fig. 2. 



mounted. Anyone viewing the skull, as now placed in its normal 

 position, i.e. with the grinding surface of the molars upon a nearly 

 horizontal line (PI. XIV, Fig. 2), and comparing it with the above 

 woodcut (which shows the position of the head as originally 

 set up, and as figured in the "Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis"), 

 cannot fail to be struck by the great change produced in the aspect 

 of the fossil. The cranium in profile, measured from the palate to 



