Mr. Busk on the Species of Rhinoceros from a Fissure-cavern. 381 



3. "Further discovery of the Fossil Elephants of Malta." By 

 Dr. A. A. Caruana. Communicated by Dr. A. Leith Adams, F.G.S. 



The author described a new locality in Malta in which the re- 

 mains of Elephants had been found recently — the Is-Shantiin fissure 

 at the entrance of Micabbiba. It was filled with a compact deposit 

 of red earth containing fragments of limestone, many teeth and 

 fragments of bones of Elephants, associated with bones of large 

 birds. The author found three small shark's teeth, and a small 

 tooth which he regarded as belonging to Hippopotamus. He indi- 

 cated the nature of the teeth and bones of Elephants found by him 

 in the newly discovered fissure. The whole of the five localities in 

 which ossiferous fissures have been discovered are in the same part 

 of the island ; and the author concluded with some remarks upon the 

 geological conditions under which the remains of mammalia must 

 have been accumulated, and upon the probability that a connexion 

 then existed between Malta and Africa. 



In a note appended to the paper Dr. A. Leith Adams stated that 

 the supposed tooth of Hippopotamus was a germ true molar of one 

 of the pigmy elephants, and that the Shark's teeth have probably 

 been derived from the Miocene deposits. 



April 27th, 1870.— B. A. C. Godwin-Austen, Esq., F.E.S., 

 Yice-President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Species of Rhinoceros whose remains were discovered 

 in a Fissure -cavern at Oreston in 1816." By George Busk, Esq., 

 F.E.S., F.G.S. 



The object of this paper was to show that the Ehinoceros whose 

 remains were discovered by Mr. Whidbey in a fissure-cavern 

 at Oreston, near Plymouth, in the year 1816, and described by 

 Sir Everard Home in the ' Philosophical Transactions " for 1817, 

 belonged, not as has hitherto been supposed by every one except 

 the late Dr. Falconer, to Ehinoceros tichorhinus, but to Rh. lepto- 

 rhinus, Cuv. (R. megarhinus, Christ.). 



The remains in question are in the Museum of the Eoyal College 

 of Surgeons, and consist of between thirty and forty more or less 

 broken portions of the teeth and of numerous bones of the skeleton. 

 The greater number being hardly in a condition to afford satisfactory 

 diagnostic specific characters, the remarks in the paper were limited 

 to the teeth and to a perfect metacarpal bone, which appeared 

 amply sufficient for the purpose. 



The teeth mainly relied upon were the first or second upper 

 molars (m 1 or m 2 ) of the right and left sides. Both the teeth were 

 broken, but what was wanting in one was supplied by the other. 

 The characters exhibited were shown to be unlike those of R. ticho- 

 rhinus, and quite in accordance with those of R. leptorhinus. These 

 were the thinness and smoothness of the enamel, the configuration 

 of the dorsal surface, the form and size of the columns, and the dis- 



