244 



ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. 



share in producing the effect. The disappearance of the 

 species must be sought for in causes of a more general scope. 



M. Lartet, in his very able and suggestive essay ' On the 

 Ancient Migration ' of the existing Mammiferous Fauna of 

 Europe, 1 takes the inference of these authors as his starting 

 point, and carries it further than appears to have been in- 

 tended by them. He avers that the remains of E. primige- 

 nius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus have nowhere in Europe 

 been discovered, except in deposits of a more modern age 

 than the Northern drift ; and that these species did not make 

 their appearance among us until after the emergence of the 

 drift-covered plains of western Russia, at the close of the 

 Glacial period ; in short, that the Fauna was first tertiary 

 in the north of Asia, and then became quaternary in Europe. 

 But this very ingenious argument is at once negatived by 

 the fact, that we have unquestionable evidence that the 

 Mammoth existed in England before the deposition of the 

 'Boulder-clay,' as the cotemporary of Mammalian species, 

 handed down from the Pliocene period. 



On a review of the data which we possess at the present 

 time, it would appear that there is not a tittle of proof that 

 E. primigenius has been met with anywhere in Europe or 

 Asia, in deposits of an older date than the ' Forest bed ' of 

 the Norfolk coast. The Mammoth is emphatically entitled 

 to the significant name proposed by Geoffrey St. Hilaire, in 

 one of the bright inspirations of his latter years, of ' Dicyclo- 

 therium,' as having by a ' miracle of Providence ' survived 

 through two epochs. 2 The geographical range of its asso- 

 ciate Rhinoceros tichorhinus was greatly more restricted. It 

 has never been observed hi America, nor as yet in Italy. 3 

 The same restriction appears to apply to its range in time ; 

 I have seen nothing as yet to satisfy me that it existed in 

 the Fauna of the ' Forest-bed ' of Norfolk. The negative 

 evidence, in a case of this kind, is of little value, since it 

 proves nothing more than the limit of our positive know- 

 ledge up to a given time ; but the asserted instances of its 

 occurrence 4 are regarded by me as erroneous identifications, 

 and as belonging to a more ancient extinct species. 



1 Comptes Kendus, torn. xlvi. Seance, 

 22 Fevrier, 1858. 



"- Op. cit. Seance, 23 Janv. 1837. 



3 Extract from Dr. Falconer's Note- 

 book.— 'May S, 1859. In the Museum 

 of the Collegio Eomano at Eome there 

 is the germ of an upper left molar of 

 B. tichorhinus and two detached lower 



molars of the same species. They have 

 no labels and their origin is unknown, but 

 their yellow ochre matrix is exactly like 

 that of the Kent's Hole specimens. In 

 specific characters they differed from all 

 specimens found near Eome with which 

 I compared them.' — [Ed.] 



4 Brit. Foss. Mam. pp. 347 and 364. 



