[4] The elephant, the thigh-bone of which, measuring nearly 3 ft. in length, is drawn in Fig. 32, is a large Indian one. This species is exceeded in size by the African. See "Science from an Easy Chair," Second series, p. 123.–The largest elephant the bones of which are known is the Elephas antiquus of the Pleistocene, bigger than either of the living species and bigger than the mammoth, Elephas primigenius. The arm-bone (humerus) of one of this species (Elephas antiquus) lately dug up near Chatham and now in the Natural History Museum, is 4 ft. 3 in. in length. CHAPTER VII WHAT IS MEANT BY "A SPECIES"? Those who take an interest in natural history must find it necessary to know what the naturalist means by "a species" of animal or plant. What does he mean when he says: "This is not the same species as that," or "This is a species closely allied to this other species," or "This is a new species"? What are the "species" concerning the origin of which Darwin propounded his great theory? There is really no English word which can be exactly used in place of the word "species." I often have to use the word when writing about plants or animals, and should like once for all to say what is meant by it. One might suppose that a "kind" is the same thing as a species. And so it often is; but, on the other hand, by the word "kind" we often mean a group including several species. For instance, we say the "cat-kind" or the "daisy-kind," meaning the "cat-like" animals or the "daisy-like" plants. The expression "the cat-kind" includes the common cat and the wild cat, and even leopards, lions, and tigers, each of which is a species of cat. And by the "daisy-kind" we understand a group including several species of daisies, such as the common daisy, the ox-eye daisy, the camomile daisy, the michaelmas daisy, and others. Hence we cannot translate species simply by the word "kind." "Kind" is the same word as "kin"–"a little more than kin and less than kind," runs Hamlet's bitter pun. "Kind" means a group held together by kinship, and it may be a larger or a smaller group held together by a close kinship or by a more distant one. "Sort," again, will not serve our purpose as an English translation of "species." For, although "a sort" implies a certain selection and similarity of the things included in the "sort," the amount of similarity implied may be very great or it may be indefinitely vague and remote. Hence naturalists have to stick to the word "species," and to use it with a clear definition of what they mean by it.