ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 



45 



an ample collection of the best materials in the form of 

 crania, jaws, and teeth, insists upon the specific distinctness 

 of the Tuscan fossil elephant, E. meridionalis, from the true 

 mammoth of Siberia. Other palseontologists have gone so 

 far as to construct ten species out of the single species of 

 Cuvier, founding the distinctive characters upon the difler- 

 ences presented by the molar teeth. A like range of con- 

 flicting opinions has prevailed in regard to the mastodons. 

 Cuvier, Owen, and De Blainville concur in restricting the 

 narrow-toothed mastodons of Europe to a single species, the 

 geographical range of which Cuvier extended even to South 

 America; while Croizet and Jobert, Kaup, Yon Meyer, and 

 others, divide them into two, M. longirostris, and M. angus- 

 tidens. No less than two genera and at least ten nominal 

 species have been founded upon teeth, which Owen, De 

 Blainville, and most other authorities, attribute merely to 

 different ages and sexes of a single species, the M. OMoticus 

 of North America, In short, the ascertained fossil species, 

 exclusive of those of India, according to some, are limited 

 to one elephant and four or five mastodons ; while others 

 would raise the number of the former to ten, and of the latter 

 to upwards of twenty. 



This great diversity of opinion, almost unequalled in regard 

 to any other section of mammalian palaeontology, has in a 

 gTcat measure arisen from the isolated and often defective 

 nature of the materials relatmg to this tribe, as they ordi- 

 narily come before the palaeontologist. From the peculiar 

 mode of succession of the molar teeth, which yield the prin- 

 cipal distinctive characters in mastodon and elephant, by 

 repeated renewals from back to front, at different stages of 

 the animal's grovrth, as the worn and exhausted grinders 

 drop out, a limited number only of the whole series can be 

 met with in any one fossil specimen, even under the most 

 favourable conditions. It is this peculiarity which has so 

 long retarded the attainment of an accurate knowledge of 

 the dentition of the livmg species. The difficulty applies 

 with double weight to the fossil species,^ for the teeth are 

 rarely met with in connection with perfect crania and jaws ; 

 they most frequently occur detached, or connected with 

 mutilated fragments. It is only, therefore, from the com- 



' In illustration, it may be mentioned 

 that Eichwald (Nova Act. Acad. Nat. 

 Cvu-ios. 1834, vol. xvii. p. 735, tab. liii. 

 fig. 2), in a memoir descriptive of fossil 

 remains of Elephas, Mastodon, and Di- 

 notheriimi, &o., found in Poland, figures 

 and describes what appears to be a frag- 

 ment of the symphysis of the lower Jaw 



of Binotherium as a portion of the upper 

 jaw of a new species of mastodon, which 

 he names Mastodon PodoUcus. Other 

 equally remarkable cases of the same 

 kind might be adduced ; so unsafe is it to 

 draw conclusions regarding the fossil 

 Proboscidea from imperfect materials. 



