1857.] FALCONER MASTODON. 309 



Lyelljin the 5th edition of his Manual*, under the comprehensive name 

 (on the authority of Owen) of Mastodon angustidens, as occurring in 

 the so-called "Older Pliocene" Red Crag, and in the "Pleistocene" 

 Norwich Crag : while this English species of Mastodon, wherever it 

 has been met with, whether in this country or on the Continent, has 

 been almost invariably found in company with remains of a species 

 of Elephant which Professor Owen has described as identical with the 

 Elephas 'primigenius or Mammoth of the Post-pliocene Drift and the 

 modern Siberian ice-fields. 



The object of the present communication is, to endeavour to ascer- 

 tain what are the species of Mastodon and Elephant found fossil in 

 Britain ; what the specific names which ought to be applied to 

 them ; and what the principal formations and localities where they 

 are elsewhere met with in Europe. I am the more induced to attempt the 

 task from the circumstance, that Prof. Owen in an important memoir 

 " On some Mammalian Fossils from the Red Crag of Suffolk, " which 

 appeared in a late number of the Society's Quarterly Journal +, adheres 

 to the opinion expressed in his Report to the British Association for 

 1843, and subsequently discussed at greater length in his * British 

 Fossil Mammalia' in 1846, that the Mastodon of the English Crag 

 is identical with the Mastodon angustidens of Cuvier, the Mastodon 

 longirostris of Kaup, and the Mastodon Arvernensis of Croizet and 

 Jobert. Prof. Owen, on both the occasions here quoted, up to 1846, 

 has maintained the prevalent opinion, that all the Elephant-remains 

 met with in England are referable to a single species, namely Elephas 

 primigenius ; and I am not aware that he has altered his views upon 

 this point in any subsequent publication. I have devoted much 

 study to the subject, during the last 15 years, in connexion with the 

 numerous fossil species of both genera, which are met with in India, 

 with a view to a monograph of the Proboscidean family, fossil and 

 recent. The results to which I have been conducted, as to the dis- 

 puted European species, are different from those arrived at by Prof. 

 Owen. The most of those results have been long exhibited, so far as 

 figured evidence goes, in the published illustrations of the * Fauna 

 Antiqua Sivalensis';}: : but, having devoted the last summer and 

 autumn to a Proboscidean examination, so to speak, of some of the 

 principal collections on the Continent, with special reference to the 

 European fossil species, I have been enabled to confirm or correct 

 previous conclusions on a wider field of observation. In order to 

 avoid needless repetition in the sequel, I may mention that the tour here 

 referred to embraced a detailed study of the very extensive collec- 

 tion of Val d'Arno Proboscidean remains contained in the Museum 

 at Florence ; the collections of Turin, Milan, and Pavia ; of Geneva, 

 Lausanne, Berne, Zurich, Basle, and Winterthur in Switzerland ; of 

 Darmstadt, Mannheim, and Strasbourg on the Rhine ; of the Jardin 

 des Plantes and Ecole des Mines in Paris ; the Due de Luynes' fine 

 collection of the Chartres fossil Elephant, in Chateau Dampierre ; and 

 the surpassingly rich and unrivalled collection made by my friend 



* Op. cit. p. 156. t No., 47, vol. xii. part 3. Aug. 1, 1856, p. 223. 



X Fauna Antiq. Sivalens. lUustr. par. v. pi. 42-45. 



z 2 



