SCOTLAND. the Forth. Two tusks, and some small bones of an elephant were found at Greenhill sandstone quarry, near the water of Carmel, in the parish of Kilmaurs, Ayrshire, in 1817, embedded in clay, at the depth of seventeen feet and a half. On the west of Clifton hall. in the county of Edinburgh, in 1820, a large tusk was found in a thick bed of clay, seventeen feet below the surface. At no great distance, the workmen, in excavating the canal, on the estate of Bonnington, found a copper battle axe, four feet deep, in a bed of clay, covered with seven feet of sand, and nine of moss. (The accuracy of the statement referred to in the text is questioned by the Editor of the magazine). "The bones of the extinct elephant, rhinoceros, and cave bear, are found in company with those of the common bear, the wolf, the fox, and the horse."-Remarks on the influence of society, on the distribution of British animals, by the Rev. J. Fleming, D.D. F.R.S. &c. Note.-The scene of Agricola's fame was Forfarshire. The forts of Agricola, and the rampart of Antoninus, built by Urbicus, were on the very road where some of these remains were found, and as they were garrisoned for a great length of years, it is fair to presume, that they were supplied like other Roman stations, with the usual amusements. The mention of such trivial circumstances, as wild beasts accompanying the armies and camps, was beneath the dignity of such historians as have been preserved to the present time. It is worthy of remark, that no collections of bones, of a variety of foreign animals, have been discovered, (as far as the writer is informed), either in Scotland or Ireland, where the Romans did not permanently dwell. It is not at all improbable that some animals may have been exhibited in Caledonia. 437 CHAP. XIV. 438 CHAP. FOSSIL CROCODILES. The writer does not remember to have seen in any geological remarks on fossil bones, that they have ever been referred to the ordinary occurrences of society. Louis IX. sent to Henry III. King of England, an elephant which was kept in the Tower. (Pennant's Zoology). Six centuries might place the remains of this animal in a position to subject it to the suspicion of an antediluvian origin; or of an extinct species, if from the north of Asia, or from Egypt. Many other remains have been found in Britain, but the foregoing appear to be the principal collections of bones. (See Professor Buckland's "Reliquiæ Diluviana." Where the reader will find a very full description of the fossil bones, and of the places in which they have been found. Some fossil crocodiles have been found in England. A fossil crocodile in the Alum-shale, near Whitby, upwards of fourteen feet long, and when perfect must have been eighteen; and other remains of crocodiles have been found near Whitby: also three or four species of icthyosaurus in the Alum-shale of Whitby.-Zoological Journal, April 1825, p. 141. Mr. Kingdom mentions bones of a very large size, appearing to belong to a whale and a crocodile, being found completely embedded in the Oolite quarries a mile from Chipping Norton, near Chapel-house. -Zool. Journal, July 1825, p. 284. The coasts of Yorkshire and Dorsetshire, Bath, and Newark in Nottinghamshire, are places where they have chiefly been found.-See Parkinson, Letters XVIII. and XIX. There is in the possession of Linkius a large fossil crocodile almost entire, which was found in the side of a large mountain in the midland part of Germany, and in a stratum of black fossil stone, somewhat like our common slate, but of a coarser texture, the same with that in FOSSIL CROCODILES. 439 which the fossil fish in many parts of the world are found.-Rees's CHAP. XIV. Cyc. "Crocodile." Note.-We find in Dion Cassius, B. LV. that Augustus amused the people with the hunting and killing of thirty-six crocodiles in one day. There can be no good reason why these animals, when grown, should not bear the climate of England for six months of the year at least. It is near eighteen centuries since Claudius arrived in Britain, and four thousand one hundred and seventy-three years since the period generally assigned to the deluge: have any of these animals, in a fossil state, been discovered in situations where natural accidents may not have placed them in seventeen centuries? The writer of these notes is not sufficienty acquainted with geology to offer an opinion on that subject. It must be recollected, with regard to the crocodile, icthyosaurus, and other animals, that Egypt belonged to the Romans, during the whole period of their possession of England. If crocodiles were once natural to England, would their remains not be found also in Scotland and Ireland? Have any been found in those parts? I believe not: nor any collections of bones. If so, is it not a strong argument against a former hot climate? The remains of the crocodiles in England, have been found in such places as may justly make us suspect them to have been brought by the Romans. CHAPTER XV. XV. Description of the living Asiatic and African Elephants, which are noticed by Naturalists. List of Countries in which Elephants and other Wild Beasts are found. -Tusks of fifteen thousand Elephants imported into Great Britain in eleven years. DESCRIPTION OF THE ELEPHANT. CHAP. A FULL grown elephant has, generally, eight grinders. They are composed of vertical plates, of a bony substance, enveloped in enamel, and joined together by a third substance, called cortical. The grinders succeed or replace each other, not from beneath, as our second grinders succeed to our first, but from behind; so that in proportion as a tooth is worn away, it is pushed forward by that which comes after it. Thus the elephant has sometimes one, sometimes two grinders on each side; four or eight in all, according to the period. It is said that some elephants thus change their grinders eight times. They shed their tusks only once, while under a year old. Only two species of elephants have been recognized. I. The Indian elephant has an oblong head, a concave forehead, and DESCRIPTION OF THE ELEPHANT. XV. 441 the crowns of its grinders present undulating ribbons, which are parts CHAP. of the plates which compose them, worn by trituration. The females have only short tusks. The males, of the kind called Mookna, resemble females in this respect. The perfect Asiatic elephant has five nails upon the fore feet, and four upon the hind feet. II. The African elephant has a round head, a convex forehead, and grinders presenting lozenges on their crowns. The tusks of the females are as large as those of the males*. They are found from Senegal to the Cape. There are females on the east coast, according to Ludolph and Bruce, with small tusks; and Le Vaillant speaks of a race of elephants, (in his second travels at the Cape), which never have tusks, and the head of which is less elongated than the other sorts. The African elephant has four fore-nails, and three upon the hind feett. The elephant, when full grown, is about ten feet high at the shoulder. There is, however, good reason to suppose that the elephants of some countries attain to a considerably greater height. The writer of this Volume has seen great numbers of Bengal elephants: the tallest was ten feet eight inches : it was of the Mergee or long-legged description: the tusks were of a very moderate size; and the animal did not appear aged. It was caught, with thirty-six others, in the Cassimpore woods, in the province of Dacca, Bengal. "The Nabob of Dacca had one ten feet high; and the Nabob of Oude possessed one which measured correctly ten feet six inches §." • The female, seventeen years in the menagerie of Louis XIV. the skeleton of which is in the museum at Paris, has larger tusks than any we have known of an Indian male or female of the same height.-Cuvier. + Cuvier; Corse; Rees's Cyc.; Bowdich; Phil. Trans. No. 326. It must be added, that this is given from memory; but he is certain that it was the tallest elephant which he had ever seen. § Hamilton's Gazetteer, p. 821. LLL |