On the Mammoth and the Mastodon, 387 



mounted in the museum of the Petropolitan Academy, as it is 

 represented in the phxte.* 



It might have been expected that the physiological consequences 

 deducible from the organization of the extinct species, which was 

 thus, in so unusual a degree, brought to light, would have been 

 at once pursued to their utmost legitimate boundary, in proof of 

 the adaptation of the mammoth to a Siberian climate ; but, save 

 the remark that the hairy covering of the mammoth must have 

 adapted it for a more temperate zone than that assigned for exist- 

 ing elephants,! no further investigations of the relation of its or- 

 ganization to its habits, climate, and mode of life, appear to have 

 been instituted ; they have in some instances, indeed, been rather 

 checked than promoted. 



Dr. Fleming has observed that " no one acquainted with the 

 gramineous character of the food of our fallow-deer, stag, or roe, 

 would have assigned a lichen to the reindeer." But we may readi- 

 ly believe that any one cognizant of the food of the elk, might 

 be likely to have suspected cryptogamic vegetation to have entered 

 more largely into the food of a stijl more northern species of the 

 deer tribe. And I can by no means subscribe to another proposi- 

 tion by the same eminent naturalist, that " the kind of food which 

 the existing species of elephant prefers will not enable us to de- 

 termine, or even to offer a probable conjecture concerning that of 

 the extinct species." The molar teeth of the elephant possess, as 



* A part of the skin, and some of the hah' of this animal, were sent by 

 Mr. Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented them to the museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. The hair is entirely separated from the skin, 

 excepting in one small part, where it still remains firmly attached. It con- 

 sists of two sorts, common hair and bristles, and of each there are several 

 varieties, differing in length and thickness. That remaining fixed on the 

 Bkin is thick-set and crisply curled ; it is interspersed with a few bristles, 

 about three inches long, of a dark reddish colour. Among the separate par- 

 cels of hair are some rather redder than the short hair just mentioned, about 

 four inches long, and some bristles nearly black, much thicker than horse- 

 hair, and from twelve to eighteen inches long. The skin, when first brought 

 to the Museum, was offensive to tlie smell. It is now quite dry and hard, 

 and where most compact is half an inch thick. Its colour is the dull black 

 of the living elephants. 



•j- La longue toison dont cet animal etait convert semblerait meme demon, 

 trer qu'il 6tait organise pour supporter un degre de froid plus grand que 

 celui qui convient a I'elephant de I'lnde." Pictet, Paleontologie, 8vo., torn, i., 



1844, p. n. 



