32 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



and described by Gervais. 1 Casts of this piece are to be met 

 with in many of the principal European Museums. It is of 

 large size, being about 9^ inches long by 3£ inches wide at its 

 anterior end, and it consists of five principal ridges and a double 

 talon. The five anterior ridges are well worn, and exhibit 

 the characteristic alternation of the discs in a very prominent 

 manner, nothing approaching which has ever been seen in an 

 Eppelsheim specimen. M. Gervais refers this tooth to his 

 Mastodon brevirostre, as distinguished from Mastodon Arver- 

 nensis ; but the grounds upon which he has attempted this 

 separation are wholly insufficient. 



The same peculiar characters in the alternate disposition 

 of the mammillae of the crown are finely exhibited in the last 

 lower molar of the nearly allied Indian M. (Tetraloph.) Siva- 

 lensis, as represented in PI. XXXYII. figs 8 & 8 a of the 

 ' Fauna Antiqua.' 2 The specimens resemble each other so 

 closely, that my colleague Sir Proby Cautley, 3 in his earliest 

 description, considered them to be identical species. 



If, on the other hand, we examine the equivalent teeth in 

 the lower jaw of M. (Tetralophodon) longirostris of Eppelsheim, 

 the same differences as occur in the upper molars are con- 

 stantly presented. The ridges are transverse, and the coronal 

 eminences in a greater number than a pair of mammillae, 

 which latter, on the outer and inner sides, are opposed, and 

 not alternate. Figs. 1, 2, & 3 of PI. XIX. of Kaup's < Osse- 

 mens Eossiles ' furnish excellent illustrations. 



When these molars, upper and lower, are ground down by 

 well-advanced use, the alternation of the discs in the one 

 species, and their transversality in the other, become still 

 more conspicuous. The former character is exhibited in a 

 very marked manner by figs. 1, 3, & 6 of PL IV. of Cuvier's 

 ' Divers Mastodontes,' above referred to. All the specimens 

 are of Italian origin, being either from the Yal d'Arno or 

 from the plains of Lombardy and Liguria. Cuvier remarks 

 upon one of them (fig. 6), that it is ' remarquable par des fes- 

 tons plus nombreux que dans les autres.' 4 They are all refer- 

 able to M. (Tetralophodon) Arvemensis. The alternate dis- 

 position of the discs of wear is also seen well in the speci- 

 mens of M. (Tetraloph.) Arvemensis discovered in the Astesan 

 near Dusino, and figured and described by Sismonda; 5 

 while the transverse discs of the Eppelsheim species are 

 more or less apparent throughout Kaup's Illustrations, and 



1 Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 

 3me ser. torn. r. p. 268, and Palex>ntol. 

 Francaise, p. 38, tab. iii. fig. 7. 



2 See vol. i. p. 470.— [En.] 



3 Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 

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



4 Oss. Fossiles, 4to edit. torn. i. 

 p. 259. 



6 Osteograph. di un Mastodonte an- 

 gustidente, tab. 1, figs. 2 and 3 (Mem. 

 R. Acead. Sc. Torino, ser. 2, vol. xii.). 



