236 THE MAMMALIA. 



also the Elcplms primigenius, the most frequently 

 mentioned and most widely distributed animal of 

 the group had heen driven from Asia into Central 

 Europe, whether as far as England is still uncer- 

 tain. It had an associate in the Elephas antiquus ; 

 but in any case the mammoth survived it up to the 

 period of man. Yet it can scarcely be said whether 

 at the time the human immigrant took possession 

 of Europe, and the struggle began between the 

 tamed and the wild races, between man and the 

 wolf in England, and the lion in Thessaly the 

 mammoth was exterminated in this kind of 

 struggle, or whether it succumbed to climatic, i.e. 

 to natural influences unknown to us. 1 



In entering upon a discussion of the elephants 

 as a class, it was our wish to do away with what 

 mystery seemed to encompass the existence of the 

 present animal, and we have done so by pointing 

 out their undoubted descent from the Miocene 

 mastodons. There is but one other step backwards 

 that we can take in explanation of the connection, 

 by bringing forward another of the colossal, thick- 

 skinned animals, the Dinothcrium. Up to within 

 very recent times only its skull was known (Fig. 



1 Dawkins, ' The British Pleistocene Mammalia,' Palczonto- 

 fjraphical Society, 1878, xxxii. ; Adams, ' Monograph on the 

 British Fossil Elephants,' Ibid. 1877. 



