FALCONER ON THE AMERICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 
107 
phantorhiza , as yielding a favourite food to tlie Elephant ;* * * § and the 
succulent ‘ Spekboom ’ Portulacaria Afra , or ‘ Tree Purslane,’ is 
noticed by most travellers as yielding another. 
That the African Elephant, such as we now see it, formerly ex¬ 
tended to the South of Europe, has been put beyond question—1st, 
by the researches of Lartet upon remains found in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Madrid ;fi 2nd, by the remains discovered by Baron Anca in 
the cave of San Teodoro in Sicily; J 3rd, by a molar from Grrotta 
Santa, near Syracuse, described by the Canon Alessi,§ and identified 
by myself; and lastly, by a molar exhumed by M. Charles Graudin, in 
1858, in a cave near Palermo. The last specimen has lately been 
transmitted to me for examination, and it proves that the African 
Elephant existed in that island as the cotemporary of the two extinct 
species of Hippopotamus of the Sicilian caves. The reputed cases of 
molars of the African Elephant, from the valley of the Bhine, des¬ 
cribed by Gloldfuss, I believe to be spurious fossils, after having sub¬ 
mitted them to a careful examination.11 Captain Spratt, R.N., the 
indefatigable explorer of the Hydrography and Greology of the Me¬ 
diterranean, has, as already stated, lately discovered in Malta nume¬ 
rous remains of a surprisingly small fossil Elephant, of the sub-genus 
Loxodon , which I have named E. Melitensis. 
Of the more ancient European fossil species, E. antiquus is that 
which most resembles the African Elephant in the mesial expansion 
of the discs of its worn molars. But the character is shown in a 
much less degree, and the great difference in the ridge-formula of the 
two species, places them in two distinct sub-genera. E. antiquus, in 
the series, is intermediate between E. Indicus and E. Africanus , but 
more nearly allied to the former. The crowns of its molars indicate 
alimentary habits intermediate between those of the two living 
species. 
(c.) Food of the Mammoth .—In order to estimate the force and 
value of the arguments which have been raised on this head, it is 
necessary to institute a rigorous comparison between the mechanical 
conditions of the molar crowns of the Indian Elephant, and of the 
fossil species. 
The ridge-formula is the same in both, being for the four last 
teeth of the upper jaw 12 : 12, 16, 24. The number of ridges in the 
three first of these is very constant; the last, as already stated, is 
variable within certain limits, twenty-two being the most common 
* Acacia Elepliantina, Burch. ‘ Travels in South Africa,’ Vol. i. p. 236. 
Elephant orliiza Burchellii , Benth 
f Comptes Rendus. 22 Fev. 1858. Tom. xlvi. 
j Bullet. Soc. Geol. de France. 2 Ser. t. xvii. p. 684. PI. xi. figs. 5 & 6. 
§ Atti dell’ Acad. Gioenia di Scienz. Natur. tom. 7. p. 223. 
|| Nova Act. Acad. Natur. Curios, tom. x. pi. xliv. and tom. xi. p. 2. pi. lvii., 
fig. 1. A specimen of a reputed fossil molar, of E. Africanus priscus, in the 
Museum of Budolstadt (Schwarzburg), direct testimony to the authenticy of which 
was borne by the finder, when the case was investigated on the spot by Sir Charles 
Lyell, proved, on examination in London, to be of a recent African Elephant. 
