292 OSSIFEKOUS CAVES OF MALTA. 



IV. ON THE FOSSIL EEMAINS OF ELEPHAS ME- 

 LTTENSIS, AN EXTINCT PIGMY SPECIES OF 

 ELEPHANT ; AND OF OTHEE MAMMALIA, &c. 

 FEOM THE OSSIFEEOUS CAYES OF MALTA. 1 



Among the most interesting of the fossils from the Zebbug 

 Cave is a series of molar teeth and fragments of tusks, re- 

 ferred to in Captain Spratt's papers as belonging to a fossil 

 Elephant. The molars comprise specimens ranging from the 

 first milk molar of very young animals up to what appear to 

 be adult teeth, and they are at once characterized, besides 

 other differential marks, by the singularly small size of the 

 species which yielded them. Warned by the great blunders 

 committed by Nesti, Fischer de Waldheim, and other palaeon- 

 tologists, in having been misled by the characters of milk 

 teeth, to identify them as the remains of pigmy species of 

 Elephant, I have been chary in admitting the convictions, 

 which the specimens forwarded by Captain Spratt forced 

 upon me when I first examined them. One of the most 

 characteristic of these is an upper molar of the left side, 

 bearing the following label. ' Dente che si conserva. nella 

 Pubblica Biblioteca di Malta, e trovato in Novembre 1859 in 

 Malta.' As this specimen is about to be returned to Malta, 

 at Captain Spratt's request, it is necessary to make an 

 accurate description of it, to accompany the figures drawn 

 by Mr. Dinkel. (PI. XI. figs. 1 and 1 a.) 



The tooth is a well-worn upper molar of the left side, 

 perfect so far as the crown goes, with the exception of the 



1 This description of the teeth of 

 Elcphas Melitensis formed the substance 

 of a communication by Dr. Falconer to 

 the meeting of the British Association 

 at Cambridge, on October 6, 1862. From 

 the appended letters and notes, however, 

 it will be seen that this as well as other 

 fossil remains, found by Capt. Spratt in 

 the caves of Malta, were identified by 

 Dr. Falconer as early as July 1860. 

 Dr. Falconer had drawings taken from 

 the original specimens by Mr. Dinkel, 

 some of which are here reproduced. 

 They included illustrations of the verte- 

 bra, pelvis, scapula, humerus, femur, 

 &c. Those bones were subdivided by 

 Dr. Falconer into three classes, viz. : 



old, young, and foetal, but the only 

 description of them left by him is con- 

 tained in the appended extracts from his 

 note-books. This defect, however, will, 

 I believe, be amply remedied by Mr. 

 Busk, in a memoir which will shortly 

 be published in the 'Zoological Trans- 

 actions,' and which contains the account 

 of a second species of Elephant, dis- 

 covered by him among the fossil remains 

 from Malta, and designated by him 

 Elcphas Faleoncri. Capt. Spratt's ac- 

 count of the caves whence the fossils 

 were derived will appear in an early 

 number of the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geological Society.' — [Ed.] 



