326 CONTRIBUTION TO THE MOEPHOLOGY OF THE MAMMOTH. 



on the neck and body. The very thick woolly hair which forms the 

 underfur has an average length of -i or 5 cm. At the end of the 

 entirely hairy tail were, in certain places at least, a number of long- 

 bristles a millimeter thick, which here formed a dense tuft. 



The color of the bristles must have been rust brown originally, 

 somewhat lighter or darker on various parts of the body. In the 

 remains preserved, this hair has become lighter through bleaching, 

 varying from dull fox red to fawn brown. The woolly hair varies 

 from light fawn to yellowish brown. 



The most essential distinguishing character of Elephas primi- 

 geniuH, and indeed of all proboscidians living and extinct, is found 

 in the incisor teeth. Through the discovery of the Beresovka Mam- 

 moth the question of 

 their position in the 

 skull and of their cur- 

 vature and the direc- 

 tion of the tips was 

 settled in a most posi- 

 tive manner, as al- 

 ready mentioned. 



In the Beresovka 

 Mammoth only one 

 tusk — ^the left — was 

 found, and this one, 

 indeed, was no longer 

 in j)lace when the 

 expedition a r r i v e d. 

 The discoverer of the 

 carcass had destroyed 

 a portion of the up- 

 per alveolar wall by 

 strokes of a hatchet 

 and had then sepa- 

 rated the tusk from the alveolus and carried it to Kolymsk, where it 

 was stored away by the authorities. Upon fitting the tusk into the 

 alveolus, it was immediately demonstrated that it belonged to our 

 slveleton. 



The reconstruction of the skeleton having been intrusted to me, I 

 was able to convince myself that the original position of the tusk in 

 the alveolus could be determined in an unquestionably correct man- 

 ner by inspection of the hatchet strokes. The strokes by which the 

 wall of the alveolus was cracked off had indented the surface of the 

 tusk. If the latter, Avhich was only broken a very IrEtle at the base, 

 Avas thrust into the alveolus as far as the indentation of the upper- 

 most transverse hatchet stroke visible on its surface (this place is 



Fig. 2. — Tusks of Beresovka Mammoth. 



