MASTODON LONGIROSTRIS AND M. ARVERNENSIS. 



25 



Montpellier, which he identifies with the Mastodon of the 

 Astesan and the Yal d'Arno under the name of M. breviros- 

 tre. 1 Pomel, in his memoir of 1848, proposes a new name for 

 the Simorre Trilophodon, namely M. Cuvieri, and he retains 

 that of M. angustidens for the Auvergne and Italian forms, 

 admitting their distinctness from the M. longirostris of Eppel- 

 sheim. 2 In his ' Catalogue Methodique ' of 1854, he adopts 

 the name of M. Arvemensis for the Auvergne and Montpellier 

 form, to which he assigns the additional foreign localities of 

 the Val d'Arno, Piedmont, and the Crag in England ; but in 

 a remark on the next page, he reiterates the view expressed in 

 his previous memoir, that he has retained the name of M. 

 angustidens for the species of Italy. 3 Nesti, 4 in his des- 

 cription of the Tuscan remains, adopts the name of M. 

 angustidens (Mastodonte a denti stretti) in the loose compre- 

 hensive sense in which it was used by Cuvier ; while Eugenio 

 Sismonda, aware of the various and contradictory opinions 

 upon the point, guardedly described the fine skeleton found 

 at Dusino, in Piedmont, under the title of ' Osteographia di 

 un Mastodonte angustidente.' 5 My friend and collaborateur, 

 Colonel Sir Proby Cautley, in 1836, figured and described 

 some teeth of the Indian species, to which we subsequently 

 restricted the name of M. (Tetralophodon) Sivalensis, as iden- 

 tical with the ' Mastodonte a dents etroites ' of Cuvier ; and he 

 expressed at the same time the opinion, that the Italian form 

 (which he had more particularly in view) would, with the 

 Sewalik one, constitute a subgenus of the Angustidens type, 

 in contradistinction to the type of Cliffs M. latidens. 6 



These, so far as I am aware, are the leading opinions which 

 have been put forward by original writers on this much- 

 disputed question. Those which have been expressed by the 

 compilers of systematic works on Palaeontology, however use- 

 ful, are of little weight in the discussion, as they express more 

 the balance of the authorities numerically, than opinions 

 formed upon independent examination of the subject by 

 themselves. The specific name Mastodon angustidens is even 

 struck out of the list of European species, except as a 

 synonym, in the last edition of Bronn's ' Lethsea,' and 

 replaced by the terms M. Arvemensis, M. longirostris, and M. 

 Cuvieri. 7 Palaeontologists would confer a great boon on 

 Geology, if they could be brought to agree in applying this 



1 Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 

 3me serie, torn. v. p. 268. 



2 Bull, de la Soc. Geologique, (1848), 

 torn. v. p. 257- 



3 Catal. method, et deseript. pp. 74, 

 75. 



4 Nuovo Giorn. di Lctterat. (Pisa), 



torn. xii. pp. 17-34. 



5 Mem. del Reale Accad. di Torino 

 (1851, pp. 175-235. 



6 Jonrn. of the Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, 

 vol. v. p. 294. (See vol. i. p. 126.— Ed.) 



7 Lethrea Geognostica, 3rd edit. vol. 

 iii. pp. 827-832 (1S56). 



