FAUNA OF THE POST-PLIOCENE: 357 
tinctively northern animal ; but it enjoyed during the Glacial 
period a much wider range ‘than it has at the present day, the 
conditions suitable for its existence being then extended over: 
a considerable portion of the northern. hemisphere. Thus 
remains of the Musk-Ox are found in greater or less abun- 
dance in Post-Pliocene deposits over a great part of Europe, 
extending even to the south of France; and closely- related 
forms are found in similar deposits in the United States. 
Coming to the Proboscideans, we find that the Mastodons 
seem to have disappeared in Europe at the close of the 
Phocene period, or at the very commencement of the Post- 
Pliocene. In the New World, on the other hand, a species of 
Mastodon (AZ. Americanus or M. Ohioticus) is found abun- 
dantly in deposits of Post-Plocene age, from Canada to 
Texas. . Very perfect skeletons of this species have been 
exhumed from morasses and swamps, and large individuals 
attained a length (exclusive of the tusks) of seventeen feet and 
a height of eleven feet, the tusks being twelve feet in length. 
Remains of Lilephants are also abundant i in the Post- Pliocene 
deposits of both the Old and the New World. Amongst these, 
we find in Europe the two familiar Pliocene species EB pert- 
dionalis and £. antiguwus still surviving, but in diminished 
numbers. With these are found in vast abundance the re- 
mains of the characteristic Elephant of the Post-Pliocene, the 
well-known “ Mammoth” (Ziephas primigenius), which is ac- 
companied in North America by the nearly-allied, but more 
southern species, the Llephas Americanus. ‘The Mammoth (fig. 
266) is considerably larger than the largest of the living Ele- 
phants, the skeleton being over sixteen feet in length, exclusive 
of the tusks, and over nine feet in height. The tusks are bent 
almost into a circle, and are sometimes twelve feet in length, 
measured along their curvature. In the frozen soil of Siberia 
several carcasses of the Mammoth have been discovered with 
the flesh and skin still attached to the bones, the most cele- 
brated: of these being a Mammoth which was discovered at the 
beginning of this century at the mouth of the Lena, on the borders 
of the Frozen Sea, and the skeleton of which is now preserved 
at St Petersburg (fig. 266). From the occurrence of the remains 
of the Mammoth in vast numbers in Siberia, it might have been 
safely inferred that this ancient Elephant was able to endure a far 
more rigorous climate than its existing congeners. This infer- 
ence has, however, been rendered a certainty by the specimens 
just referred to, which show that the Mammoth was protected 
against the cold by a thick coat of reddish-brown wool, some 
nine or ten inches long, interspersed with strong, coarse black 
