FALCONER ON THE AMERICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 
101 
being of a South American species, lay the authenticity of the speci¬ 
men open to grave doubts. If an American form, how did this 
unique morceau get to Australia ? If Australian, how has the Mastodon 
alone, of all the higher placental mammals, broken through the bar¬ 
riers of marsupial isolation, characteristic of the great southern island? 
Of the two alternatives, there are probably few palaeontologists who 
will be disposed to seek for an explanation in the naive conjecture of 
Blainville, that Australia, to meet the requirements of the case, was 
in connexion with America within the Pliocene period.* It seems 
more probable that some unintentional error has got mixed up with 
the history of this remarkable fossil; and until further confirmatory 
evidence is adduced, of an unimpeachable character, faith cannot be 
reposed in the reality of the asserted Australian Mastodon, f 
§ 11. Pood of lining and extinct Elephants. 
The alimentary habits of the Asiatic Elephants, in the wild and 
subjugated state, have been so carefully observed, that there is, per¬ 
haps, no other pachyderm with which, in this respect, we are better 
acquainted. But the same cannot be said of the African species ; 
the details of the vegetable matters which constitute his staple food, 
are only known in a very general way, although it is certain, from 
the difference of the vegetation of Southern Africa, where he now 
exists in great force, and of Northern and Western Africa, near 
the foot of the Atlas, where he abounded within the historical period, 
that his food must vary within a considerable range of species. The 
teeth of the Asiatic and African Elephants are so differently modi¬ 
fied, and the trees on which they browse are so distinct, that the 
Asiatic species would probably be distressed for food, where the 
African finds it in abundance, and vice versd. Both are represented 
in the fossil state by species having molars constructed more or less 
after the patterns respectively yielded by them, and I propose to 
consider how far our knowledge of the former will assist us, in spe¬ 
culating regarding the alimentary habits of the latter. 
(a.) Food of the Indian Elephant .—The ‘ Sal,’ or ‘ Tarai’ Eorests, 
which stretch at the foot of the Himalayahs, from lat. 30°, where the 
Ganges and Jumna escape from the mountains to the Bramapootra, 
* The fact that such a hypothesis was advanced, shows the responsibility in¬ 
volved in the publication of the data , which gave rise to it. 
f Since the above remarks were written, Professor Owen, again brought forward 
the case of the Australian Mastodon , as a proof of the remarkable geographical dis¬ 
tribution of the Proboscidia, in a communication which he delivered to the British 
Association at Cambridge, on the 4th Oct. entitled, “ On a tooth of Mastodon from 
the Tertiary marls near Shanghai.” In the subsequent discussion, he frankly 
abandoned it, in consequence of the doubts then urged regarding its authenticity. 
As the asserted fact has taken deep root in systematic works, it is still necessary, 
that the refutation here embodied should appear in the records of Science. ( Vide 
‘ Parthenon’ of 11th Oct. 1862, p. 754.) 
