426 LAND MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 



At present, the Proboscidea are restricted to the warmer 

 parts of Asia and Africa, where five species, four of them 

 African, are recognized. This is a very great reduction in the 

 number of species and in the area inhabited during the Pleis- 

 tocene epoch, when they ranged through every continent, 

 except Austraha, and were adapted to every climate from the 

 tropics to the shores of the Arctic Sea. Four distinct species 

 of proboscideans existed in Pleistocene North America, three 

 elephants and a fmastodon, though not all in 

 the same areas, nor probably all at the same 

 time, their ranges both in time and space 

 overlapping to a greater or less degree, but 

 not exactly coinciding in either respect. 



The first species was an immigrant, the 

 northern fMammoth {Elephas ^primigenius) , 

 which extended over the greater part of the 

 northern hemisphere, both in the Old World 

 and in the New. This is the species of which 

 complete carcasses with hide and hair have 

 been found in the frozen gravels of northern 

 Siberia, its structure and appearance being 

 thus almost as well known as those of any 

 phalanges. E, pad modem elephant. That the t Mammoth was 

 (After M.Weber.) perfectly adapted to life in a climate of severe 

 cold is shown not only by the contents of the 

 stomach, which are comminuted fragments of present-day 

 Siberian vegetation, but also by the dense coat of woolly hair, 

 covered by long, coarse outer hair, which afforded full protec- 

 tion against the cold. The tusks, with considerable variation 

 of form, had a tendency to spiral curvature, curving first 

 downward and outward, then upward and inward ; the grind- 

 ing teeth were characterized by their relative breadth and the 

 numerous thin enamel-ridges which traversed them. The 

 number of these ridges was very variable in different indi- 

 viduals, but may be expressed for the six successive teeth as 



Fig. 225. — Vertical 

 section through 

 the nianus of the 

 Indian Elephant. 

 U, lower end of 

 ulna. L, lunar. 

 M, magnum. 

 Ill, third meta- 

 carpal. 1,2,3, 



