MONOGRAPH 
ON THE 
BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 
I. INTRODUCTORY. 
The differentiation of a species of fossil Elephant distinct from the Elephas primi- 
genius, to which all teeth and bones referable to the genus were supposed to belong, was 
first surmised by Nesti from discoveries made in the Valley of the Arno and the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Rome. 1 Subsequent researches by Cuvier, Croizet, Be Blainville, and Owen, 
are fully detailed by Falconer, 3 and the more pertinent points are referred to in the 
previous parts of this Monograph; suffice it to state that, whilst Nesti and Croizet main¬ 
tained the specific identity of A 7 , meridionalis, the three other palaeontologists adhered to 
the opinion that the evidences he had adduced were not sufficient. It was left to Dr. 
falconer, in 1844, when engaged in studying the Proboscidean remains collected by 
himself and others in Northern India, to correlate certain characters of the molars with 
those of similar relics from British strata. The result of these comparisons he has 
embodied in the Essays I have so frequently referred to in this work. 
In his classification of the Proboscidea from their forms of dentition, he includes the 
L. meridionalis with A. planifrons, of India, E. priscus (a species he subsequently with¬ 
drew as being only a variety of E. antiquus), E. Africanus, and E. Melitensis, in his sub¬ 
genus Loxodon, which he again subdivides into two groups, distinguished by their well- 
maiked dental characters. Thus, E. meridionalis and E. planifrons have the “colliculi 
grosse digitati, adamante crasso,” and differ in these respects from all other Elephants. 
The value he attached to the teeth alone as diagnostic of species of Proboscidea is appa¬ 
rent throughout all his writings; and, as I have elsewhere observed, his system of 
taxonomy is formed entirely from dental conditions, as shown by the distinctive dia¬ 
meters of the three sub-genera Stegodon, Loxodon, and Edelephas. I have already 3 
1 ‘ Annale des Museo di Firenze,’ tom. i, et ‘Nuovo Giornale de Letterat.,’ tom. xi. 
2 ‘ Palaeontological Memoirs,’ vol. ii, p. 104. 
3 Page 78 and elsewhere. 
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