ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 59 



specimens from Buenos Ayres, lately acquired by the British 

 Museum. Tlie great weight of Cuvier's authority has given 

 an undue influence to his statement upon this point, which 

 has biassed the observations of some later writers directed 

 to the subject. 



JSTo other additions were made to the species of Mastodon 

 from the second edition of the ' Ossemens Fossiles' until 

 1826, when an important discovery was made of fossil bones, 

 along the banks of the Irrawaddi River, in the Bin-mese 

 Empire, by Mr. Crawfurd. These remains have been figured 

 and described in the ' Geological Transactions,' by Mr. Clift, 

 who has made a valuable contribution to palseontology by 

 proving the existence of two Indian fossil species, which, 

 through the form and number of the coronal divisions of the 

 molars, establish connecting links between Elephas and Mas- 

 todon. These he has named M. Eleplianto'ides and M. latidens, 

 and from their examination, he was led, with prescient 

 sagacity, to anticipate the discovery of other forms which 

 should constitute a complete transitional series between the 

 two genera. 1 But Mr. Clift, like Cuvier, overlooked the pre- 

 sence of a coat of ' cement,' which is developed in such 

 thickness in one of the species {M. Elephanto'ides) as to be of 

 functional importance ; and his two nominal species include 

 teeth which appear to belong to several distinct forms. 



The next accession to the species of Mastodon was made 

 in 1828, by Croizet and Jobert, who described certain fossil 

 teeth and jaws from Auvergne, under the name of M. Arver- 

 nensis.^ The specimens were chiefly jaw fragments, derived 

 from very young animals, and the species was characterized 

 by these palseontologists, as distinguished from the true 

 M. angiistidens of Cuvier, by the presence of a well -developed 

 front and back 'talon' in each of the molars, and by the 

 greater complexity in the composition of the crown ridges, 

 which are irregularly subdivided into aggregations of small 

 warty cones. 



The observations of Croizet and Jobert were correct, so 

 far as they went, and to them assuredly belongs the merit of 

 havmg first recognised the distinctness of this much-disputed 

 species, which is most frequently met with in authors under 

 the name applied to it by Kaup of M. longirostris.^ But the 

 most essential distinctive character escaped their notice. In 

 the year following the publication of their work, Hermann von 



' Clift, Geol. Trans. 2iicl Ser. vol. ii. was subsequently corrected in the pub- 



p_ 3g9_ lished plates of the Fauna Antiq. Si v., 



2 Croizet et Jobert, ' Eecherch. sur les where %I. longirostris and M. Arvernensis 



Oss. Foss. du Depart, du Puy-de-D6me,' are shown to be distinct.' See also memoir 



1828, p. 133. on Mastodon in vol. ii. 



' MS. Note hy D,\ F. ' This mistake 



