42 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



off into the base of the symphysial beak (Plate II. fig. 8). 1 

 This beak is very massive and comparatively short, not ex- 

 ceeding the length of the horizontal ramns, from the mentary 

 foramen to the anterior margin of the ascending ramus. 

 Instead of being, as it were, a deflected continuation of the 

 inferior border of the jaw, as is seen in M. (Trilophodon) 

 angustidens, the beak in the Eppelsheim species is thrown 

 off in a plane nearly parallel with the inferior border, but 

 separated from it and raised above it by a step. It is deflected 

 slightly downwards ; but, instead of forming a long slender 

 apophysis as in the other species, it shows a thick mass tra- 

 versed by a broad gutter. The greater extent of the beak is 

 made up of the alveoli of two mandibular incisors, as in M. 

 (Trilophodon) angustidens. These teeth have not yet been 

 found in situ. Kaup has figured three specimens 2 which he 

 conjecturally considers to be lower incisors. The greatest 

 diameter of the largest he states to be 2*75 inches. The 

 molars of these Eppelsheiin jaws have constantly exhibited 

 the Tetralophodon character of four ridges to the crowns of 

 the intermediate teeth ; the ridges being transverse, with the 

 valleys nearly uninterrupted. 



In the Pliocene M. (Tetraloph.) Arvernensis, the lower jaw 

 differs widely from that of the other two species. The as- 

 cending ramus is well elevated above the grinding plane of 

 the teeth, as in M. (Tetraloph.) longirostris. The horizontal 

 ramus is very massive, without compression, and yields a 

 section which is nearly circular, as in that species. But the 

 symphysis, instead of being elongated into a process composed 

 of the alveoli of two mandibular incisors, terminates suddenly 

 in a short beak, as in the Elephants and other Proboscidean 

 species that are destitute of inferior tusks. This beak does 

 not project much more beyond the anterior rounded surface 

 of the jaw than in the African Elephant, or in M . (Trilophodon) 

 Humboldtii, also a species without mandibular incisors ; but 

 it differs from them and all other known species in the 

 diastemal ridges expanding at the point, so as to form a short, 

 blunt, dilated spout. This character is well shown by the 

 Yal d'Arno specimen delineated by Cuvier in the ' Ossemens 

 Fossiles,' torn. i. tab. ix. figs. 5 & 6, after ISTesti. It is one of 

 the pieces upon which ISTesti founded his Elephas meridionalis ; 

 but which, although the molars are wanting, Cuvier saga- 

 ciously inferred, from the general form, to belong to a 

 Mastodon. I was enabled, by the obliging permission of 

 Professor Gaspero Mazzi, to examine the specimen minutely, 

 and to compare it with the numerous lower jaws of E. (Loxodon) 



1 Kaup, Oss. Foss. de Darmst. tab. I 2 Ossemens Fossiles de Darmstadt, 

 xix. fig. 1. 1 tab. iii. figs. 1, 2, 3. 





