IV 
PREFACE 
revealed by Charles Murchison in his edition of Falconer’s Memoirs (1868, vol. I, 
pp. 442 and 443, footnotes) do not seem to affect the nomenclature. 
The addition of a ? to the name in “ Fauna Sivalensis ” may be held to deprive 
it of any status, and this is fortunate, since otherwise E. antiquus 1847 would 
disappear as a synonym of E. meridionalis Nesti 1825. The name E. antiquus 
was legitimated in 1865, when, definitely and without ?, it was transferred to the 
figures erroneously named E. meridionalis in “ Fauna Sivalensis,” notably the 
molars on plate 14 A. It is in that sense that the name Elephas ( Euelephas ) 
antiquus was used in Falconer’s Memoirs edited by Murchison (1868, vol. II, p. 176), 
and in that same sense it has subsequently been adopted by authors. 
It remains to point out that no holotype has ever been fixed, and in so variable 
a species this omission introduces a fresh source of possible confusion. It is, however, 
not thought advisable to repair the omission in the present work, since students of 
the Proboscidea are awaiting the imminent publication of a complete revision of 
the nomenclature, with the needful selection of types, from the pen of Professor 
Henry Fairfield Osborn. 
The details of the papers referred to (by Author’s name and date) here and 
throughout the Memoir are given on p. 25. The contractions of titles of periodicals 
follow, in the main, the World List of Scientific Periodicals. 
In his Introduction, Mr. Forster Cooper has acknowledged the help received 
from several of those engaged from first to last on the installation of the skeleton 
and the preparation of the Memoir. My own high appreciation of the services of 
all concerned has been expressed elsewhere (1927), but I may be permitted again to 
record the thanks of the Trustees and of this Department to Dr. W. Rushton Parker, 
not only for his generosity, but for his patience, and to express my personal thanks 
to Mr. A. T. Hopwood for his constant help with the mounting and with the editing. 
F. A. BATHER. 
Department of Geology, 
British Museum (Natural History), 
6 th February , 1928. 
