the teeth, in the different species of Elephant, and the numbers of the ribs and dorsal vertebræ, we obtain the remarkable result that, as the latter numbers decrease, the laminæ become narrower. In E. africanus these laminæ are widest, and here we also find the greatest number of dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs: E. sumatranus, in which the laminæ are narrower, has twenty dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs: E. indicus, in which they are still narrower, only nineteen. In the Mammoth, (E. primigenius) where they are narrowest of all, the number of dorsal vertebræ and ribs, appears to be only eighteen.[1]
As the conclusion of this short notice, we may remark that Cuvier, by neglecting to compare together specimens of the different species of Elephants, and to attend to the numbers of their dorsal vertebræ and ribs, deprived himself of the discovery of the third living species of Elephant, and thereby missed a principal argument for his assertion, that E. primigenius belonged to a different species from those now in existence. Had he not lost this piece of evidence he would have obtained an overbearing argument in the last-named question, and Naturalists would have become acquainted with the existence of a third species of Elephant, half a century sooner.
Is two separate casts of the lead off the Bellona Beef, Lat. 21. 51. S., Long. 159. 28. E., we obtained specimens of living Polypi, referable, as Dr. Gray has since very kindly informed me, to the genus Heterocyathus, and on comparing them with others previously collected by me in the Feegee group, I found that they were specifically different, though obviously belonging to the same genus.
The corallum is simple, free, depressed, broad and flattened at the base, becoming smaller towards the calyx or oval disc, which is more or less oval in figure, and comparatively shallow, with a well-developed septal system following the regnant number six.
The septa are disposed in three sets, or whorls, according to the order of their development, viz. a primary set, which is most prominent and made up of six or twelve members, a secondary, equal in number and alternating with these, and a tertiary set, of double that number and alternating with the other two. The primary septa have, on either side, a thin sub-parallel lamina, with which they are blended at the thecal margin, being only connected with them internally by means
- ↑ That the Mastodons form, not a diverging, but a parallel series with the Elephants, seems evident from the wholly different form of their tusks, also from the fact that the Mastodon giganteus has only twenty dorsal vertebræ and an equal number of ribs—that is less than E. africanus—whilst the knobs of the teeth are far larger than those of the last-named animal.
