216 ANIMALS OF THE PAST 



have been found, bears any image whatsoever. 

 On the other hand, if not made by the aborig- 

 ines, who made it, why was it made, and why 

 did nine years elapse between the discovery of 

 the first and second portions of the broken or- 

 nament ? These are questions the reader may 

 decide for himself; the author will only say 

 that to his mind the drawing is too elaborate, 

 and depicts entirely too much to have been 

 made by a primitive artist. A much better bit 

 of testimony seems to be presented by a frag- 

 ment of Fulgur shell found near Hollyoak, 

 Del, and now in the United States National 

 Museum, which bears a very rudely scratched 

 image of an animal that may have been in- 

 tended for a mastodon or a bison. This piece 

 of shell is undeniably old, but there is, unfort- 

 unately, the uncertainty just mentioned as to 

 the animal depicted. The familiar legend of 

 the Big Buffalo that destroyed animals and 

 men and defied even the lightnings of the 

 Great Spirit has been thought by some to 

 have originated in a tradition of the mastodon 

 handed down from ancient times ; but why 

 consider that the mastodon is meant ? Why 



