BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xliii 



tlie ridge-foriTmla to the arrangement of the rest of the 

 Proboscidean forms, or Elephants, under the divisions of 

 Stegodon, Loxodon, and Eueleplias. In 1858 he urged upon the 

 Palaeontographical Society the propriety of ' bringing out a 

 series of figures of the natural size and with descriptions of 

 all the teeth of each species of fossil Elephant and Mastodon 

 found in the British strata, so that, wherever a specimen 

 might be discovered, there might be a standard figure by 

 which any competent observer might be able at once to 

 identify it.' ^ In 1862 Dr. Falconer communicated to the 

 British Association at Cambridge an account of Elephas Me- 

 Utensis, the pigmy fossil ElejDhant of Malta, discovered with 

 other extinct animals by his friend Capt. Spratt, C.B., in the 

 ossiferous cave of Zebbug. This unexpected foi-m presented 

 the Proboscidea in a new form to naturalists.^ Farther 

 researches on general questions concerning the same family 

 appeared in a memoir on Elephas Columbi, published in 

 the 'Natural History Review' for 1863, the title of which 

 but inadequately indicated the range of the subjects dis- 

 cussed.^ 



His researches on the fossil species of Rhinoceros were 

 scarcely less important. Among many notes and papers 

 which never appeared during his lifetime may be mentioned 

 a most important memoir ' On the European Pliocene and 

 Post-Pliocene Species of Rhinoceros.' ^ In this memoir it 

 is attempted to be shown that there are four distinct Plio- 

 cene and Post- Pliocene species of Rhinoceros, three of which 

 have long been confounded by Cuvier and other Palaeontolo- 

 gists under the name of R. leptorhinus. One of these, the 

 original R. leptorhinus of Cuvier, founded upon the Cortesi 

 cranium [R. megarhinus, Christol), has no bony nasal septum ; 

 two, R. Etruscus, Falc, and R. hemitcechus, Falc. {R. lepto- 

 rhinus, Owen), have a partial bony septum ; while the fourth, 

 R. antiquitatis, Blumb., or R. tichorhinus, Fisch. and Cuv., 

 has the bony septum complete. 



Soon after his return to England Dr. Falconer devoted 

 much study to the new Purbeck mammalian genera disco- 

 vered by Mr. Beckles, near Swanage. The specimens were 



' Letter to J. Bowerbank, Esq., Sec. 

 Pal. Soc, March 23, 1858. 

 ^ See vol. ii. p. 292. 



5 See vol. ii. p. 212. 

 « See vol. ii. p. 309. 



