62 
BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 
at its lower part is 4 inches; unfortunately this measurement is not attainable in the 
gigantic pelvis which Dr. Falconer considered might have belonged to the colossal E. 
meridionalis. The Yarmouth specimen therefore being the more slender bone and 
preserving the constricted upper portion of the foramen ovale of the Mammoth and 
Asiatic Elephant belongs no doubt to the former. 
9. EEMUR. 
It is extremely probable that no long bone of Elephas antiquus would display more dis¬ 
tinctive characters than its femur. Although fragments of both the shaft and extremities of 
thigh bones of laige Elephants are contained in the Norwich Museum, it does not appear 
to me possible at present to differentiate their characters with certainty. A huge femur 
in the Gunn Collection, referred by Falconer 1 to the Elephas meridionalis, is from the 
Forest Bed. Both the extremities are wanting. The shaft does not seem to have lost 
much of its external layers, and gives a girth of 20 inches at the middle. The entire 
length of the specimen is about 47 inches. In the latter respect it far eclipses any 
femur of the Mammoth I have seen; at the same time, in thickness it is assuredly not 
in proportion to the usual robustness of the long bones inferred to belong to Elephas 
antiquus. 
Two distal epiphyses of femora from Walton in Essex are preserved in the Museum 
of the Geological Society of London. One of them is recorded by Falconer as belonging 
to the Elephas antiquus , 3 
It seems, as far as I have been enabled to determine from materials, that the 
condyles do not converge closely in the African Elephant E. Mnaidriensis , 3 and in the 
femora from Walton ; and it will be seen by comparing the figures or specimens of the 
same bone of E. Namadicus 4 that in all there is a pronounced resemblance, whilst in 
the Mammoth and E. Asiaticus the condyles are more apart. 
With reference to the Walton epiphysis, which like its fellow is that of a young or 
adolescent Elephant, the internal articular surface is 17 inches in the antero-posterior by 
5 inches in the transverse diameter; the external condyle being 14‘7 inches by 
4’6 inches. The former measurements, of course, include the patellar aspect as well as 
the tibial. The greatest length of the Nerbudda Valley femur of E. Namadicus, 
according to Mr. Prinsep, was no less than 5 feet 3 inches, with a girth at the head 
of 2 feet 3 inches, and a breadth across the lower condyles of 11 inches, the latter 
measurement being 14 inch greater than that of the Walton condyles. 
1 ‘ Pal. Mem.,’ vol. ii, p. 144. 
3 Ibid., vol. i, p. 490; and ‘F. A. S.,’ pi. liii, fig. 13. 
3 1 Trans. Zool. Soc. London,’ vol. ix, pi. xiv, fig. 2 a, and p. 60. 
4 ‘ F. A. S.,’ pi. Ivi, figs. 1, 5, and 6; and ‘Pal. Mem.,’ vol. i, pp. 495, 496. 
