68 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



The Nikolajew skeleton may therefore be referred, on the best 

 grounds, at any rate provisionally, to Mastodon Tapirokles. The 

 remains in question thus determined, since they cannot well be re- 

 ferred to Mastodon longirostris, would appear to possess a positive 

 scientific value, and are calculated to establish on more definite grounds 

 a species hitherto accepted only from the characteristic form of the 

 molars. At the same time they demonstrate that, at least in Europe 

 and Russia, another species of the genus Mastodon existed, besides 

 Mastodon longirostris. 



The significant fact referred to in the preceding report is worthy 

 of attention, viz. that a few steps from the site of the Mastodon remains, 

 and in one and the same deposit, there was found a layer, about an 

 inch thick, of a rusty, incompact wood, approaching the condition of 

 lignite. The origin of it can only be explained thus, that the place 

 where the remains were found bore forests during the period of exist- 

 ence of the Mastodon, whilst at the present time its surface presents 

 bare tracts of steppes or prairie-land. From what Ave know of the 

 habits of the existing Elephants, it may also be reasonably inferred 

 that the wood in question constitutes a part of the remains of arbo- 

 real forms, the young twigs and leaves of which furnished at least a 

 part of the food of the Mastodons. We may lay the greater stress on 

 this view, as the remains of onr Mastodon, which were tolerably con- 

 nected with each other, or at any rate not very far separated, belonged 

 to an individual that died at no very great distance from the place 

 Avhere they were found. [H. F. & T. R. J.] 



Note. — The Nicolaieff Mastodon, as above indicated by Professor 

 Brandt, appears to belong to M. Tapirokles ; but, as De Blainville, 

 to whose 'figures the author refers, confounded two distinct species 

 under this name, viz. M. Borsoni and M. Tapirokles, the former a 

 Pliocene form, and the latter from the Middle Miocene deposits of 

 France and Switzerland, it is important to add, that the Nicolaieff 

 skeleton belongs, so far as a determination can be rested on the 

 figures, to the M. Tapiroldes proper of the French palaeontologists, 

 being the M. Turicensis of Schinz, front the lignite beds of Koepfnach. 

 See Schinz, Schweitz. Denkschr. vol. vii. p. 58, PI. I. fig. 1 ; De 

 Blainville, Osteographie, Gen. Eleph. PI. XVII. sup. 5 & 6 C , infer. 1 & 

 6 a ; Lartet, Bulletin Soc. Geol. de France, vol. xvi. p. 486, PL XV. 

 fig. 3.— H. F. 



&• 



II. — Extracts from Dr. Falconer's Note-Books. 



A. Mastodon Angustidens and M. Borsoni. 



Zurich Museum, August 29, 1856. 



Returned here from Basle this morning, to examine the Probosci- 

 deans fossils from Koepfhach, &c. 



Examined : 1st. The tooth figured by Schinz, Tab. I. fig. 6, beino- 

 the penultimate upper right of Mast, angustidens found in Koepfhach. 

 It is of a very broad oblong shape, with three ridges and intermediate 

 mammillae interrupting the continuity of the valleys. The large 

 mammillae are very blunt and converging, as in Alast. angustidens. 

 The enamel is very smooth ; the posterior talon descends outwards 

 from the last inner tubercle, and is crenulated with a number of 



