212 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



just done the mammoth, but if any reader 

 knows of specimens larger than those noted, 

 he should by all means publish their measure- 

 ments.* 



The disappearance of the mastodon is as dif- 

 ficult to account for as that of the mammoth, 

 and, as will be noted, there is absolutely no 

 evidence to show that man had any hand in it. 

 Neither can it be ascribed to change of climate, 

 for the mastodon, as indicated by the wide dis- 

 tribution of its bones, was apparently adapted 

 to a great diversity of climates, and was as 

 much at home amid the cool swamps of Mich- 

 igan and New York as on the warm savannas 

 of Florida and Louisiana. Certainly the much 

 used, and abused, glacial epoch cannot be held 

 accountable for the extermination of the creat- 

 ure, for the mastodon came into New York 

 after the recession of the great ice-sheet, and 

 tarried to so late a date that bones buried in 



* As skeletons are sometimes mounted, they stand a full foot 

 or more higher at the shoulders than the animal stood in life, 

 this being caused by raising the body until the shoulder-blades 

 are far below the tips of the vertebrae, a position they never as- 

 sume in life. 



