4 ELEPHANTS, RECENT AND EXTINCT. 



the earth's history known as the Miocene ; but when we 

 have reached to that stage all below is dark as regards the 

 elephantine pedigree. And it is, indeed, one of the most 

 remarkable circumstances in palaeontology that although 

 we know that elephants belong to the great group of 

 Hoofed or Ungulate Mammals, of which they form a 

 well-marked division, yet we have practically no sort of 

 knowledge of the many extinct forms which we presume 

 must have connected them with Ungulates of a more 

 ordinary type. 



Although the trunk and tusks of elephants form their 

 most striking external features, yet it is not to these that 

 the naturalist looks at first when inquiring into the true 

 affinities and general structure of these animals, since 

 these come under the categor}' of speciahzed and acquired 

 structures, which tell Ijut little of an animal's past history;, 

 he looks rather to the structure of the internal skeleton, 

 which is always of especial value, as being that part of the 

 organism which is usually alone preserved in a fossil state. 

 Let us then first turn our attention to the skeleton of these 

 animals, of which we may see examples in our larger 

 museums. The most remarkable feature noticeable in such a 

 skeleton is that the various long-bones of the limbs are 

 placed almost directly one above another, so as to form 

 nearly vertical columns of sujjport for the body ; whereas in 

 ordinary Ungulates, such as a horse or an ox, these bones 

 are set very obliquely to one another. Moreover, as a 

 similar vertical position of the limb-bones occurs in several 

 old extinct Ungulates which are known to be of extremely 

 primitive organization, we may take it that an elephant's 

 limbs are likewise of a primitive type. We have, however, 

 further evidence in confirmation of this primitive structure. 

 Thus elephants differ from all other living Ungulates in 

 having five complete toes to all their feet (Fig, 3). 

 Moreover, whereas in other living Ungulates (except the 

 little hyrax) the bones of the wrist are not situated in 

 vertical rows immediately over the metacarpal bones of 

 the foot, but, on the contrary, cross and overlap one 

 another, in elephants they have the former relation, with 

 the single exception that the bone marked I overlaps the 



