THE STORY OF THE ELEPHANTS 279 



branches of trees. Many mammals, as we know, eat the leaves 

 of trees ; some gnaw the bark ; but elephants alone tear down 

 and crunch the branches. One would think there was but little 

 nourishment to be got from such. But the hard vertical plates 

 of their huge grinders enable them to pound up the tough vege- 

 table tissue and render it more or less palatable. Of course, the 

 foliage is the most tempting, but where foliage is scarce some- 

 thing more is required. 



Now, in the teeth of the Mammoth the same principle of 

 construction is observed, only with greater complexity, for there 

 are more of these grinding plates and a larger proportion of 

 dense enamel. Hence the inference seems unmistakable that 

 the extinct species fed more largely on woody fibre than does the 

 elephant of to-day. Forests of hardy trees and shrubs still grow 

 upon the frozen soil of Siberia, and skirt the banks of the Lena 

 as far north as the sixtieth parallel of latitude. 



If the Mammoth flourished in temperate latitudes only, as 

 formerly suggested, then its thick shaggy coat becomes super- 

 fluous and meaningless ; but if it lived in the region where its 

 body has been found, then the argument from its teeth, and the 

 fir-spikes found in its stomach, is confirmed by the nature of its 

 skin, and all the old difficulties vanish. Sir Bichard Owen con- 

 sidered that we may safely infer that, if living at the present day, 

 it would find a sufficient supply of food at all seasons of the 

 year in the sixtieth parallel, and even higher. Perhaps it 

 migrated north during the summer ; and, judging from the 

 present limits of arboreal vegetation, it may have been able 

 to subsist even in latitude 70 north, for at the extreme points 

 of Lapland pines attain a height of sixty feet. 1 



1 Sir Henry Howorth, in his Mammoth and the Flood, suggests another 

 theory, and gives much valuable information. 



