178 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



belonging to what the Tartars called " Mam- 

 antu " ; later on, Blumenbach pressed the com- 

 mon name into scientific use as " Mammut," 

 and Cuvier gallicized this into " IVIammouth," 

 whence by an easy transition we get our fam- 

 iliar mammoth. We are so accustomed to 

 use the word to describe anything of remark- 

 able size that it would be only natural to sup- 

 pose that the name Mammoth was given to 

 the extinct elephant because of its extraordi- 

 nary bulk. Exactly the reverse of this is true, 

 however, for the word came to have its present 

 meaning because the original possessor of the 

 name was a huge animal. The Siberian peas- 

 ants called the creature " IMamantu," or 

 " ground-dweller," because they believed it to 

 be a gigantic mole, passing its life beneath the 

 ground and perishing when by any accident it 

 saw the light. The reasoning that led to this 

 belief was very simple and the logic very good ; 

 no one had ever seen a live Mamantu, but 

 there were plenty of its bones lying at or near 

 the surface ; consequently if the animal did not 

 live above the ground, it must dwell below. 

 To-day, nearly every one knows that the 



