138 
BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 
usually two good-sized internal foramina, which, however, may be wanting. These are 
also present in the Asiatic, but are usually smaller and more numerous, whereas in many 
mandibles of the African Elephant I have examined not a trace of these canals is seen. 
They seem to be present in both E. antiquus and E. meridionalis. 
The length of the symphysis being dependent on the prominence or otherwise of the 
chin, it will usually be longer in the long-beaked species than ordinarily in the Mammoth 
and Asiatic Elephant. Bat the great width of the gutter, although very general, is not 
an invariable character. It is well shown by the Woodcuts at p. 135, an exceptional 
instance being seen in the jaw (fig. 6) dredged in Holyhead Harbour, as compared with 
fig. 7 and other mandibles. 
The diasteme is nearly vertical in the majority of mandibles of the adult Mammoth 
that have come under my notice, but there is no uniformity in this character, and its 
height increases from youth to mature age. It is high in E. antiquus , E. Namadicus , and 
E. Asiaticus, and more depressed in E. Africanus, E. planifrons , and E. meridionalis} 
In the last named “ it slips gradually into the beak, making a longer symphysis and 
spoilt.” 3 The diasteme appears, therefore, like the rostrum, to be subject to variation in 
the degree of inclination in the adult Mammoth, but upon the whole it is more erect in it 
than in either of the recent, and in any jaws of extinct species hitherto recorded. The 
following woodcuts represent this character in various specimens and species. 
Fig. 21. 
E. primigenius, Dogger Bank. 
(British Museum Collection, 
No. 46,215.) 
Fig. 19. 
E. primigenius, Arctic. (British 
Museum Collection, No. 61 a.) 
Fig. 20. 
E. primigenius, Harbour Holy- 
head. (British Museum Col¬ 
lection, No. 38,567-) 
1 The dip of the diasteme in this species, although low as compared with the Mammoth, is not always 
so, as Woodcut fig. 28 shows, while a still higher angle is displayed in the ramus from the Forest Bed 
lately mentioned, to which further reference will be made in my Monograph on E. meridionalis. 
2 ‘Pal. Mem.,’ vol. ii, p. 127. 
