1 80 MAMMALS. 



Although it is now generally admitted, that all the remains found in recent deposits in North 

 America belong to one sjDecies (the M. giganteus, olim M. Ohioticts, Blum.), remains have been 

 brought from the miocene beds of the Mauvaises Torres, which there cannot be a doubt will 

 prove distinct. The common species extends as far south at least as Hondm-as, for Dr. Leconte 

 found that the bones in a Mastodon bed there, near the village of Tambla, in a pass leading to the 

 Pacific, belonged to that species. 



In South America the Mastodon ranged along the whole line of the Andes, from 5° N.L. 

 to 40° S.L. It has been found at great elevations ; in 34° S.L. at the height of 1400 feet above 

 the level of the sea ; and at Quito, Humboldt found it at the height of 7200 feet ; Mr. Darwin says it 

 has ajjpeared on the limits of perpetual snow. In that case the land may have been elevated 

 since tlie deposition of the remains. 



A tooth has also been foimd at Shanghai, and it was described by Prof. Owen at the meeting 

 of the British' Association at Cambridge in 18G2. 



For long (that is, ever since 1845) it has been accepted as a fact, that the Mastodon also lived 

 in Australia, but this belief is now abandoned, or at all events judgment is held in aliej-ance ujjon 

 it until further evidence be procured. It originated with Count Strzlecki, who, after having travelled 

 over North America, South America, Australia, and the Indian Archipelago, and made collections 

 in all tliese places, on his arrival in England in 1844, placed in Prof. Owen's hands the tooth 

 of a Mastodon, which he stated he had purchased from a native near the Wellington Valley 

 caves in Australia, the well-known locality from which so many extraordinary fossil remains have 

 been obtained. Prof. Owen described it, and at various times has dwelt at greater or less length, 

 on the inferences which such a discover}' suggests ; and, notwithstanding that various objections had 

 been taken to its authenticity, he maintained it down to 1862, when at the meeting of the Britisli 

 Association at Cambridge, the repetition of his belief in it met with so much dissent, that he 

 surrendered to the general expression of opinion, and aclcnowledged that until further evidence 

 appeared it must be held that some error had taken place in regard to the place whence the tooth 

 came. The reader will find a full and interesting accoimt of the whole circximstances connected with 

 tlie reputed Australian origin of this tooth, in a paper by Dr. Falconer, in the "Natural History Review," 

 January' 1863. The gist of it is, that the tooth has all the characters of one of the species from the 

 Andes ; that the matrix has none of the character of the Wellington Valley bones ; the latter 

 having a reddish ferrugiueous colour, which Dr. Falconer mentions that this has not;* and that 

 there is every reason to believe that some misplacing of labels had taken place. Count Strzlecki 

 having to all appearance put into Prof. Owen's hands a specimen from South America instead of one 

 from Australia. Count Strzlecki's own account of how he jorocured the specimen adds probability to 

 the idea of there having been some mistake. He speaks of the native having brought him a bone, 

 and saj'ing that Janjer hones were to be had in the interior ; language which is less applicable to a 

 tooth than to a bone from some other part of the body. The a priori arguments against this largo 

 animal having been found solitary and alone of all placental mammals (except a few small rats, 

 and the probably introduced dingo), in the country of Marsupials, are strengthened by the impro- 

 bability, that if they then existed, not a trace of anj^ other elephantine remiains should ever have 

 boon found since 1843 to the present time, notwithstanding that the district where it was supposed 



* I iMiiy add fnmi personal cxaniinaliou of the siicci- resemble the Wellington Valley matrix, but has a whitish 

 men, that tlio matrix in wliicli it has Iain docs not at all grey calcareous appearance. 



