. A history of British fossil mammals, and birds . ches in antero-posterior diameter, has only thirteenplates. A greater contrast is presented by two grinders of theMammoth from British diluvium in the collection of thelate Mr. Parkinson, one of which, with a grinding surfaceof five inches and a half in antero-posterior extent, ex-hibits the al)raded sunnnits of seventeen plates, whilst the 232 PROBOSCIDIA. other shows only nine plates in the same extent of grind-ing surface. Some palaeontologists have viewed these differences asindications of distinct species of Elephas. But the vastnumber of
. A history of British fossil mammals, and birds . ches in antero-posterior diameter, has only thirteenplates. A greater contrast is presented by two grinders of theMammoth from British diluvium in the collection of thelate Mr. Parkinson, one of which, with a grinding surfaceof five inches and a half in antero-posterior extent, ex-hibits the al)raded sunnnits of seventeen plates, whilst the 232 PROBOSCIDIA. other shows only nine plates in the same extent of grind-ing surface. Some palaeontologists have viewed these differences asindications of distinct species of Elephas. But the vastnumber of grinders of the Mammoth from British stratawhich have been in my hands in the course of the last threeyears, have presented so many intermediate gradations, inthe number of plates, between the two extremes above cited,that I have not been able to draw a well-defined line betweenthe thick-plated and the thin-plated varieties of the molarteeth. And if these varieties actually belonged to dis-tinct species of Mammoth, those species must have merged. Fy. 89.
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