186 MAMMALS. 



" Tlic state of our exact knowledge, at the present time, regarding the duration, geographical 

 range, climate, habits, and food of the Mammoth, appears to be thus : 



" The species existed before the glacial period in Europe, and survived long after it in Europe or 

 America. The constitutional flexibility, which is implied by its dicyclotherian term in time, is equally 

 evinced in its vast geographical range of habitat ; extending from the valley of the Tiber to the Lena, 

 and from Eschscholtz Bay to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Making due allowance for the 

 interference of the glacial phenomena, the extremes of north and south latitude, in which undoubted 

 remains of this ancient Elephant have been found, necessarily imply, that his constitutional flexibility 

 was like that of man, capable of adaptation to very great diflerences of climate. In Siberia, he was 

 enveloped in a shaggy, thick covering of fur, like the Musk-ox, impenetrable to rain or cold. But 

 we arc not obliged to suppose, that in his southern habitat he was thus clad. The dermal ajipendages 

 are very variable, and adajjtive according to climate. The fine siUiy fleece, from which the Cashmere 

 shawls are woven, is abundantly developed at the roots of the long hairs of the domestic goat in the 

 l^lains of Tibet, at, and upwards of, 16,000 feet above the level of our sea, where a liighly rarified 

 atmosphere is combined with severe winter cold. It grows, also, on the Kiang, the Yak, Cerrus 

 Wallichii, the Brown Boar of high elevations in Himalayah, and on the IMastiff Dog of Thibet. But it 

 disappears entirely from the same Goat, and from the Dog, in the Valley of Cashmere. The short, 

 crisp wool, of the Siberian Mammoth, which seems to have been the most protective portion of his fur, 

 may, in like manner, have disappeared from the variety that lived in the Valley of the Tiber, while the 

 bristles and long coarse hair were more or less retained ; and it is in the highest degree probable, that 

 the species presented varieties of external form, dependent on the nature of the dermal clothing, far 

 exceeding those which are seen in existing Elephants. That the Siberian Mammoth migrated 

 periodically from the more southern forests, towards the Polar sea, during siunmer, as his surviving 

 contemporaries the 5Iusk-ox and Reindeer now do, is also highly probable ; but we have no grounds to 

 believe that the Mammoth of Southern Europe ever made migrations to the north of the Alps." 



There are one or two points in this view which seem to me open to question. In the first place, 

 as to the migration of the Mammoth from the southern forests to the Polar seas in simimer ; if Mr. 

 Falconer meant no more than is implied in the migrations of the species which he cites in illustration 

 — the Musk-ox and Reindeer — perhaps a couple of hmidred miles — I have nothing to say, but if, as 

 the context imj)lies, he imagines a migration of such extent that a dying Mammoth would in smnmer 

 leave his bones on the shores of the Arctic Sea, and in winter in the Vallej' of Cashmere — that he wore 

 in winter the coat we wot of, while in summer he was bare as my hand, then I should wish to express 

 my dissent. Neither do I think that the facts warrant the assertion that his constitutional flexibility 

 was lilce that of Man, capable of adaptation to very great differences of climate, or the attribute of a 

 A'ast geographical range of habitat accorded to it, so far as that implies a simultaneous range through 

 many degrees of latitude. I attribute the occurrence of his bones over the vast extent of latitude 

 through which we find them to a different cause. No one disputes that the retreat and advance of 

 the glacial ejjoch were gradual, and I imagine the occurrence of the bones of the Mammoth and its 

 usual contemporaries — the Musk-ox, the Reindeer, and Cave Bear — in localities where the climate is 

 now mild to have been due to the climate ha^'ing been polar there when the bones were deposited. 

 I think all these were circumpolar animals, that is, all habitually living, like the Reindeer, at or a 

 liltk' to the south of the margin of the Arctic Circle, for as regards this point the Arctic Circle might 



* Falconer, op. cit. p. 112. 



