182 BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



expressed a belief, from studies of molars of the E. antiquus, E. primigenius, and other 

 species, that he often exercised a far too rigorous observance of the characters of these 

 sub-genera in his differentiations of the ridge formulae of species, thereby reducing the often 

 wide extremes to a mean which cannot fairly be said to express the ridge formula of the 

 tooth in question, as is well exemplified in the case of the ultimate molar of E.primigenius, 1 

 and numerous other instances. Moreover, I find, as far as the materials I have examined 

 are concerned, that the evidences afforded by the teeth of E. meridionalis support these 

 inferences deduced from the dental elements appertaining to the other extinct and 

 recent species. 



II. DISTRIBUTION. 



Both the geological and geographical distribution of E. meridionalis generally, and in the 

 British Islands in particular, are much more limited than is the case with either of its two 

 congeners. As far as this so-called Meridional Elephant is concerned, it has only been 

 found hitherto in what is known as the "Forest Bed," or submerged fluviatile and fluvio- 

 marine deposits, which form the bottom of that portion of the North Sea extending along 

 the shores of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, as shown in Map, PI. XXVII. 



The absence of its remains in any British deposits more recent than the Pliocene 

 period accounts for the disparities of distribution between it and the two other extinct 

 species, as shown in Maps, Pis. XXVII and XXVIII. 



The contemporaniety of the E. meridionalis and E. antiquus is generally admitted, 

 from numerous discoveries of their remains in the same bed. Dr. Falconer maintained a 

 similar opinion as regards E. primigenius? chiefly on evidences deduced from discoveries 

 in Italy ; whilst Boyd Dawkins and others refused to admit that the specimens found 

 along the sea-beaches of Norfolk and Suffolk were derived from the Forest Bed, insisting 

 that they were the products of the Post-pliocene strata overlying the latter, and from which 

 they had been washed by the sea. In support of this view several instances were advanced 

 of molars of the Mammoth having been dug out of these Post-pliocene strata. At page 72 

 I have alluded to this subject ; and, after a careful survey of the specimens and the writings 

 of authorities, I was of opinion that the existence of the Mammoth prior to the Ice Age 

 had not been clearly proven : but a visit to the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk during the 

 summer of 1879, and inspections of the specimens described at page 173, together with the 

 evidence of persons who discovered them, leave little doubt on my mind that these teeth and 

 others alluded to cannot be distinguished from typical molars of the Mammoth. The 

 view, therefore, of Falconer, that the three species were contemporaneous, and that the 

 Mammoth was a Pre-glacial Mammal, seems to me more than probable, not only from the 



1 Table, p. 123. 



2 Op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 239 and 587. 



