ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS—INTRODUCTION. 
5 
•correct. At the same time, considering the smooth, narrow, and aggregated disks of 
the Mammoth and the Arctic distribution of the animal, and that, in all probability, pine 
and other trees of woody fibre constituted the staple food of the denizens of the boreal 
regions, it seems that the fluted enamel would have been better adapted for the attrition 
of the twigs of timber trees and such like evergreen forest vegetation of high latitudes. 
The evidences on which the presence in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits, both in 
Great Britain and elsewhere, of the so-called Elephas antiquus have been hitherto con¬ 
fined, as far as the former is concerned, to England and Wales, whilst molars, appa¬ 
rently undistinguishable from remains found in British strata, have been identified by 
competent observers from similar formations in Belgium, Germany, Spain, Prance, 
Switzerland, Italy, and Sicily. 
Reverting to the distribution of the species in the British Islands, there is no evidence, 
therefore, as far as is known to me, of any remains of Elephas antiquus having been met 
with in Scotland or Ireland; indeed, the cavern deposits of Kirkdale and Settle Caves 
of Yorkshire mark the northern limits at present. The molars on which its specific 
characters are chiefly established have therefore been discovered throughout England and 
Wales, from Yorkshire to the English Channel, and from Wales eastward to considerable 
depths on the sea-bottom of the German Ocean. 
Stratigraphically the evidences of the existence of the species have been obtained 
from the pre-glacial deposits of the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, and from more recent 
river and estuarine beds, and from cavern and fissure deposits. Before proceeding to an 
enumeration of the particular localities from whence remains have been determined, it 
appears necessary to observe that, although abundant traces of this form of Elephant have 
been met with in England, it would seem from exuviae that the species was par excellence 
South-European; at all events, negative testimony points to the fact that, whereas its 
congener, the Mammoth, has left unmistakable proofs of its residence in the boreal regions 
of the Old and New Worlds, not a single instance of the existence of the so-called 
E. antiquus has yet been adduced from any continent or locality north of the 54th 
parallel of latitude in North-Western Europe ; moreover, although there are cogent proofs 
of the Mammoth having ranged as far south as Spain and Central Italy, it would seem 
that the E. antiquus was the more common. At the same time, as in not a few instances 
in England, the elephantine remains of continental collections have been erroneously 
ascribed to the Mammoth. Indeed, little has been added since Falconer s time to our 
knowledge of the European distribution of the species I am now considering; inasmuch 
as palaeontologists have been slow to admit that the evidences furnished by the teeth 
were sufficient to separate the aberrant from the typical molar, which, until Falconer’s 
differentiation, had been considered to be only varieties of that of the Mammoth. 
It appears from the evidences adduced in connection with the Fre-glacial deposits of 
the east coast of England and the river deposits of Northern Italy that the Elephas 
antiquus and Elephas meridionalis were contemporaneous, whilst, on the other hand, as 
