ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 13 



This opinion has been very generally adopted by subsequent authors, 

 among others, by M. de Blainville, and by Professor Owen, 

 who has entered at considerable length upon the question, in his 

 ' British Fossil Mammalia,' and decided in favour of the specific 

 unity of the European forms. But notwithstanding this array of 

 authority, we cannot help thinking that Cuvier was premature in 

 his conclusion, and that the identity of the forms has rather been 

 assumed against the evidence, than proved by it. Had the 

 differences in the teeth been less considerable than they are known 

 to be, it would have been requisite to show that the crania at least 

 agreed, before this identity could be considered to have been 

 satisfactorily established. But there were not sufficient materials 

 for making such a comparison when Cuvier wrote. The cranium 

 of the Siberian Mammoth was known to him only through figures 

 of five specimens, not one of which was drawn in any exact 

 projection ; and his acquaintance with the Italian fossil Elephant, 

 exclusive of teeth, was limited, in regard to the head, to a single 

 mutilated fragment, not extending above the orbits and maxillary 

 bones. There is little doubt, also, that like other writers, he was 

 partly swayed by the extraneous consideration of the geographic 

 range of the two existing Elephants, the continents of Asia and 

 Africa having each but a single species. We have the less hesi- 

 tation in advancing these doubts, as conclusive proof will be 

 adduced in the sequel that, in the similar instance of the Mastodon 

 angustidens, Cuvier and others have included under that name 

 two forms which are so distinct that, in our view, they do not 

 even belong to the same section of the genus ; while the Sewalik 

 fossil remains show that there were formerly several species of 

 Elephant at one time in the same Fauna in India. 



Soon after the publication of Cuvier's Memoir, Nesti, in 1808, 

 proposed an addition to the European fossil species, founded 

 on remains from the Val d'Arno. 1 He put forward two new 

 species : the first, resting on a lower jaw without teeth, was 

 characterized by a peculiar spout-shaped prolongation of the 

 symphysial apophysis; the second, which he named E. mini- 



1 Nesti, Annate del Museo de Firenze, torn. i. 



