180 DR. H. POHLIG 01^ POSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



III. 



The collections of Pleistocene mammals in German and Italian 

 museums being very rich and generally but little known, I resolved 

 to examine them with the view of preparing a general memoir. 

 For this purpose I worked in the museums of Munich, Jena, Halle, 

 Dresden, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Darmstadt, 

 Prankfort, Wiesbaden, Bonn, and Miinster, in Germany ; in those 

 of Verona, Padua, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Pisa, Genoa, Milan, 

 and Turin, in Italy ; and I also studied in the museums of Lyons, 

 Brussels, and Tiflis, and in several private collections, i'or the 

 same purpose I visited the museums of London, Paris, Leyden, 

 Berlin, Prague, Brunn, Vienna, and Odessa; and in the coming spring 

 I intend visiting the collections in Spain and Portugal. 



I have commenced with a monograph of the German and Italian 

 fossil Elephants, the first part of which, embracing the dentition and 

 craniology, is now completed, and the principal results of that work 

 are as follows : — 



1. ElepJias antiquus, Falc, was the largest of all terrestrial 

 mammals hitherto known. One of the most remarkable peculiarities 

 of that species is the extreme divergence of its incisor alveoli , 

 amounting to about 1 metre. In craniology, as in dentition, E. 

 antiquus has several relations with E. africanus. 



2. The pigmy insular fossil races of the Mediterranean (Malta &c.) 

 cannot be considered specifically distinct from E. antiquus ; we must 

 rather regard them as several gradations of a diminutive race of that 

 species produced by degeneration, and designate them E. (antiquus) 

 melitce^ Falc. 



3. ElepJias meridionalis, Kesti, emend. Pohl., did not quite attain 

 the dimensions of E. antiquus^ ^ and difi'ers widely from the latter 

 in dentition and craniology. The opinions published by Nesti and 

 Falconer on this species, as also their figures, are incorrect in several 

 points, and will be amended in my monograph. The skuU of E. 

 meridionalis presents several resemblances to that of E. indicus, and 

 especially to that of E. primigenius. 



4. The fossil remains from the Siwalik hiUs figured by Falconer 

 and Cautley under the name of " E. liysudricus " can no longer be 

 regarded as distinct from E. meridionalis, in accordance with the 

 emendations of the latter species made in my monogra])h. 



5. The knowledge of ElepJias primigenius, Blum., has also been 

 considerably augmented by the description and representation of a 

 vast series not hitherto published. In dimensions the Mammoth was 



^ In the discussion on the present paper (see page 181) Messrs. Boyd 

 Dawkins and Lydekker seem to have been uncertain as to the sense in which I 

 understand the names E. antiquus and E. meridionalis ; I understand them in 

 the usual manner, as that of Nesti, Falconer, and L. Adams, but excepting 

 about one tenth of the specimens of these authors, and, as regards E. antiquus, 

 adding the enormous continental series hitherto unknown. The above state- 

 ments are not mere tJieses, but facts, proved in my monograph by numerous 

 admeasurements and numbers, attained by a study of nearly seven years, but 

 which it is impossible to repeat here. 



