

ELEPHAS MELITEJNTSIS. 305 



tlon, the ridges bounding the gutter of the spout and the two mentary 

 holes, but much too mutilated to indicate the age or give any determin- 

 able character. 



' There is also what appears to be a residuary portion of the smooth 

 ball of the humerus of an Elephantine form, but very much mutilated 

 and weathered ; also the iliac portion of a pelvis and three fragments of 

 the cranium of an Elephant, so inferred from the presence of large 

 diploe-cells. Among the other fragments are a metacarpal or meta- 

 tarsal bone of a pachyderm, the size of a large Tapir, also a scapula, 

 with the articular cup and spinous process nearly perfect ; also a pha- 

 langeal bone apparently of a Proboscidean. Fragments of spinous pro- 

 cesses of vertebras, both dorsal and lumbar, some of them indicating 

 animals of a very considerable size, as large at least as Bos primigenius. 

 Besides the mammalia, there are various fragments of the carapace 

 and plastron of two Chelonian forms, one of them of small size, and 

 indicated by small fragments ; thSre are some leg bones without articu- 

 lar surfaces, apparently belonging to the same forms. Further amongst 

 the collection there is a series of specimens which bear very distinct 

 marks of having been gnawed by a large carnivorous animal. The 

 tooth marks upon some of these are very boldly pronounced. From 

 among these, nine principal specimens have been selected ; one a cylin- 

 drical bone, is the most pronounced ; another is the gnawed and de- 

 tached globular head of a femur, about 1| in. in diameter, and another 

 apparently the head of a humerus. Many of the darker specimens ex- 

 hibit distinct marks of minute superficial burrowings or excavations, 

 which Mr. Rupert Jones tells me have been detected even in grave-bones 

 by Professor Henslow. It is not a little remarkable that amongst 

 these numerous indications of gnawing by a large carnivore, there is not 

 a single indication of what that form was. The core, with some enamel- 

 inequalities of one tooth was found, but with no part of the crown 

 remaining, and therefore wholly undeterminable. It would agree, in 

 size, with the carnassier tooth of a large Hyaana, but it is too mutilated 

 to guess even at the order to which the form belonged. 



' A number of sharks' teeth were found in the clay among the fossils 

 from the Zebbug Cave ; these are the only objects that might possibly 

 have been used by man, no fragments of rlint having been found in the 

 cavern. These teeth probably fell out from the yellow sandstone 

 deposit in which the cave occurs, and in which similar teeth are fre- 

 quently found.' 



8. Notes of Captain Spratfs Collection of Fossil Bones from Crendi 

 Cavern, Malta. (Mahlek Cave of Adams.') 



1 Geological Society, March 18, 1862. — The principal mass of the 

 collection consists of a very hard, compact, calcareous matrix, and 

 fragments containing solitary molars, fragments of molars of tusks and 

 incisors of Hippopotamus Pentlandi. They appear all to belong to a 

 single species Hipp. Pentlandi. About a dozen of the specimens, com- 

 prising fore molars and back molars, are tolerably perfect ; they were 

 compared with some of Baron Anca's specimens from Olivella, and 

 others found by myself in the Maccagnone Cave, with which they agree 

 entirely. Some of the molars agree with the larger Sicilian form of 

 the same cave and of the caves near Palermo. These have been put up 



VOL. II. X 



