16 PACHYDERMATA. 



nus} But the almost universal consent of palaeontologists is 

 against these so-called species; which are considered to be nothing 

 more than varieties in the teeth, dependent upon age and sex in 

 individuals of the Mammoth. 



M. Morren, under the name of Elephas macrorhynchus, has 

 lately proposed a new species for some of the fossil remains found 

 in Belgium ; but the grounds upon which it rests do not appear to 

 be more valid than in the case of the Russian and Polish species. 2 



Mastodon. — In regard to Mastodon: the first determined species 

 of this genus was the M. Ohioticus 3 of North America. The 

 abundant remains found nearly all over the temperate parts of the 

 United States had, as in the instance of the Mammoth of Europe, 

 attracted the notice of observant travellers to this great extinct 

 animal, upwards of a century ago. But, till the time of Daubenton, 

 hardly any progress had been made towards a definite idea of its 

 nature. This celebrated naturalist, in 1762, ascertained the close 

 resemblance of the femur and tusks to those of the Elephant : but 

 the molars appeared to him to present a nearer approach to the 

 teeth of the Hippopotamus, and he was puzzled whether to ascribe 

 the fossils to one or to two distinct animals. 4 Buffon participated 

 in these doubts, but inferred that a part of the remains indicated 

 the former existence of a terrestrial animal which had become 

 extinct, larger than the Elephant. 5 Peter Collinson, in the Philo- 



1 Eichwald, Nova Acta Acad. Cees. Leop. Car. Natur. Curios. 1834, vol. xvii. p. 723, 

 tab. 63, figs. 1 and 2. 



2 Morren, Bulletin de la Soc. Geol. de France, torn. ii. p. 231. 



3 As in the case of the Mammoth (£. priiyiigenius, Blum.) the specific name given by 

 Blumenbach to the North American Mastodon, M. Ohioticus is here adopted instead 

 either of M. giganteum or M. maximus, the names applied by Cuvier at different times. 

 Blumenbach, in his ' Handbuch der Naturgeschichte,' had characterized the extinct 

 animal by the form of the teeth, and called it Mammut Oliioticum, as a species of a 

 peculiar genus, before the appearance of Cuvier's memoir (Annal. du Mus. torn. vi. 

 p. 260, 1805), in which the designation of M. giganteum is first applied. This latter 

 was abandoned (Oss. Foss. 4to edit, of 1824), for M. maximus. If the law of priority 

 left a choice, M. Ohioticus would still be preferable to either of the names given by 

 Cuvier, as the species is by no means the giant of the family. 



4 Daubenton, Actes de l'Academie des Sciences, 1762 ; and Histoire Natur. de Buffon, 

 torn. xi. 



5 Buffon, Histoire Natur. torn. xi. p. 86. 



