CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 243 



tooth is scarcely to be differentiated from crowns of E. Africanus ; but this agreement is not 

 confined to it alone, inasmuch as their bones have been shown to present many affinities. 



Again, one of the most remarkable resemblances in connection with this description 

 of molar, and, in no small degree, the bones likewise, is presented by their relations to 

 the same elements in the dwarf Elephants of Malta, as pointed out in my Monograph on 

 these pigmy forms. 1 



From these data it might be conjectured that the African and Maltese Elephants were 

 evolved from the narrow-crowned variety of E. antiquus. 



Elephas meridionalis. 



Frequent allusions have been made in preceding pages to the relations of the dental 

 elements of the above with those of the E. planifrons of the Sewalik Hills of Northern 

 India. The materials of this Miocene Elephant, although somewhat scanty, at all events, 

 as far as the grinders are concerned, show a decided relationship with E. meridionalis. 

 Both were of stupendous dimensions, and show by no means such tendencies to varia- 

 bility as displayed in the dental and osseous structure of E. antiquus. The only striking 

 resemblances between certain molars of the former and the latter are furnished by such 

 enormous and thick-plated molars as the remarkable tooth from Culham, 2 in the Oxford 

 University Museum, and another from Whittlesea, in the Museum of Zoology of Cam- 

 bridge University, 3 and the largest ultimate molars of E. meridionalis. But whilst these 

 agree as to the thickness of the dental elements, they differ in the sculpturings of the 

 crowns; indeed, the disposition to thick- and thin-plated varieties in all the British, 

 Maltese, and, to a less extent, the recent species, shows that these conditions alone are 

 not trustworthy diagnostic characters. The presence of a pre-molar in E. planifrons and 

 its suppression in E. meridionalis constitute an important distinction, but, like the pre- 

 antepenultimate milk-molar, may not be an invariable condition. 



The passage from the sub-genus Stegodon towards Loxodon has been thus indicated 

 by Falconer : — " The ciphers yielded by the ' ridge formula ' of E. {Stegodon) insignis 

 place the species in close affinity with the Loxodons, and more particularly with the 

 species named E. {Low.) planifrons!^ The former, according to this authority, is of 

 both Miocene and Pliocene, and the latter Miocene. 



Again, the natural affinities between the Mastodons and the Stegodons are shown by 



Also, and the very suggestive example discovered by Ramsay a few years ago in a deposit near Tangier, 

 4 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.,' vol. xxxiv, p. 5]4, fig. 9. 



1 'Trans. Zool. Soc. London,' vol. ix, p. 108, and plates iii — ix inclusive. 



2 Page 33. 



» Page 177. 



4 Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 8G. 



