240 
BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 
excavations. It must be conceded that until the Asiatic fossil forms have been fully 
described no sound deductions in connection with the pedigrees of Proboscideans in 
general are likely to be arrived at. 
With reference to the Proboscidean remains from British strata, the abundant 
materials of the Mammoth skeleton from the Arctic regions in the Museums of 
this country afford ample means for comparative purposes. In consideration, however, 
of accidental intrusions, I have invariably, wherever Arctic types were available, pre¬ 
ferred them, especially in the cases of the fragmentary elements of the appendicular 
skeleton. The association of the teeth and bones of the three species in Pre-glacial 
deposits, and of the Mammoth and E. antiquus in Post-pliocene strata, leaves no doubt 
that they were not only cotemporaneous, but must have often herded together. The 
same, moreover, was pointedly the case with the Sewalik and Maltese species. Con¬ 
sidering, therefore, the marked variability displayed by the skeletal elements of the three 
extinct British Elephants, we may, I think, fairly suppose that by means of natural 
selection and its conditions, mutability giving rise to distinct races, and varieties 
would, in process of time, produce species such as are ordinarily accepted by the term. 
Referring even to the Mammoth, as compared with E. antiquus , there are well-marked 
distinctions between the teeth and bones met with in the brick-earths of Ilford and 
typical molars from neighbouring localities and the Arctic regions. These two pro¬ 
nounced varieties are easily recognised from each other by their dimensions and cha¬ 
racters. Now, although any one who will take the trouble to examine the Brady 
Collection in the British Museum, and compare the teeth and bones with the same parts 
from other British localities and foreign countries, cannot doubt that they represent 
one species; at the same time it must be admitted that they present considerable varia¬ 
bility. This mutability is very much more apparent in the remains of E. antiquus , and 
to a small extent with E. meridionalis, as far as remains of the latter are at present known. 
These mutabilities, more especially in the case of the Mammoth, I cannot help believing 
were never fully recognised by Falconer. 1 
The following relationships between the extinct and recent Elephants, indicated either 
solely by their dentitions, or in combination with the skeleton generally and distribution, 
must be considered, for the most part, as merely approximations subject to the corrections 
and additions of a progressive branch of scientific research. 
1 I refer especially to one of the last sentences he wrote on this subject, where he states that the 
Mammoth retained its “ organs of locomotion and digestion all but unchanged through an enormous 
lapse of ages.” Posthumous essay on “Primeval Man and his Contemporaries,” 1863, ‘Pal. Mem.,’ vol. ii, 
p. 587. 
