ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS.— TIBIA. 1G7 



An abnormal femur, No. 255 of the Gunn Collection, with the ends completely 

 consolidated, is 39 inches in length. The neck, instead of being much inclined, is nearly 

 erect, with the head fully 5^ inches above the level of the great trochanter, thus 

 furnishing a marked exception to the generality of specimens. The girth midshaft is 

 11 j inches. This bone was dredged off Yarmouth. With the above exception it agrees 

 in all the foregoing characters. Another femur from the East coast is 41 inches in 

 length, with a girth of midshaft 13 - S inches. The characters agree with typical femora 

 of the Mammoth. 



The patella is not common ; there are two specimens in Dr. F. Spurrell's Collection 

 from Crayford. One indicates a small individual, as is also represented by several 

 teeth and bones of the Mammoth from the same situation. Neither of the former differ 

 from patella? of recent Elephants ; and they partake of like irregularities in shape. The 

 smaller specimen is 3*5. X 34 inches in breadth, and has a girth of 9*4 inches, whilst 

 another is 4 X 4*5, and is 11 '5 inches in circumference. 



The above instances of the femur in adult individuals sufficiently attest the varieties in 

 size to which the Mammoth was subject — a mutability common also to recent species, 

 and considering the world-wide distribution of the former, it need not be a matter for 

 wonder that it was subject to considerable variability ; still, considering the varieties of 

 climate and physical conditions, there is a remarkable persistence of character throughout, 

 as compared with allied forms, showing thereby that the main characters were preserved 

 throughout the Post-Glacial period, whatever may have been the ancestral connections of 

 the Mammoth. 



10. TIBIA. 



There appears to be in this bone little of importance of a very stable character dis- 

 tinctive of species. The shin is prominent, with a deep cavity for the tibialis, in the 

 generality of leg-bones of the Mammoth (PI. XIX, fig. 12), and also in the Asiatic. 

 This point is scarcely so pronounced in the African Elephant. Like the other bones of 

 the extremities, the tibia is shorter in the Mammoth than in the two last named. 



The facet at the distal end for the fibula is decidedly more oblique in the Ilford 

 Mammoth (PI. XIX, fig. 12 b) and in the Asiatic Elephant than in the African; it is 

 less apparent in the huge bones from the East coast, and in several relatively larger and 

 stouter tibiae from the fluviatile deposits of the Thames Valley referable to E. aniiquus, 

 PI. XIX, fig. 11 b. 



The contours of the proximal articular surfaces of E.primigenius and E. antiquus, as 

 shown in figs. 12 a and \\ a, present also differences; the latter being not so circular, 



might have tumbled out of the alveolus into the fisherman's trawl. The specimen is an ultimate molar of 

 the upper jaw, left side, and holds x 24 # in 14 X 3|. The highest colline is 8| inches. 



