ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 



53 



for making such a comparison wlien Cuvier wrote. Tlie 

 cranium of tlie Siberian mammoth was known to him only 

 through figiu-es of five specimens, not one of which was di-awn 

 in any exact projection ; and his acquaintance with the 

 Italian fossil elephant, exclusive of teeth, was limited, in 

 regard to the head, to a single mutilated fragment, not 

 extendmg above the orbits and maxillary bones. There is 

 little doubt, also, that, like other writers, he was partly 

 swayed by the extraneous consideration of the geographic 

 range of the two existing elephants, the continents of Asia 

 and Africa having each but a single species. We have the 

 less hesitation ua advancing these doubts, as conchisive proof 

 will be adduced in the sequel that, in the similar instance of 

 the Mastodon angustidens, Cuvier and others have included 

 under that name two forms which are so distinct that, in our 

 view, they do not even belong to the same section of the 

 genus ; while the Sewalik fossil remains show that there were 

 formerly several species of elephant at one time in the same 

 Fauna in India. 



Soon after the publication of Cuvier's Memoir, Nesti, in 

 1808, proposed an addition to the Eiiropean fossil species, 

 founded on remains from the Yal d'Arno.' He put forward 

 two new species : the first, restmg on a lower jaw withoiit 

 teeth, was characterized by a peculiar spout-shaped pro- 

 longation of the symphysial apophysis ; the second, which 

 he named E. minimus, also resting upon a lower jaw, was 

 distinguished by its supposed small size, by the absence of 

 the beak apophysis, and by the rhomboid section presented 

 by the plates of the grinders. Cuvier refused to admit either 

 of IS'esti's species. The lower jaw of the first he pronounced 

 to belong rather to Mastodon angustidens than to an elephant ; 

 and the second to be nothing more than the lower jaw of a 

 young individual.^ Nesti, after a long silence, reverted to 

 the subject in 1825, in a memoir which embodied the results 

 of extensive observations carefully made during seventeen 

 years.^ He tacitly admits the jtistness of Cuvier's criticism 

 in regard to the second species, by abandoning E. minimtis ; 

 but in confirmation of his first species he adduces a great 

 mass of evidence derived from numerous crania of all ages, 

 from the foetus up to the adult, and from lower jaws in the 

 Florence and other Tuscan museuras, all of which, he affirms, 

 show the peculiar beak-like elongation of the symphysis in 

 connection with elephants' teeth. The result of the whole was 

 to remove every doubt or hesitation from his mind regarding 



' Nesti, Annale del Museo di Firenze, 

 torn. i. 



^ Cuvier, Oss. Fossiles, torn. i. p. 186. 



' Nesti, Nuovo Giornale de Letterat. 

 Pisa, 1825, torn. xi. p. 119. 



