EXTINCT SPECIES. 139 



mute. Time silently unveils the sepulchred remains, leaving 

 Fancy to expatiate, as she will, on a topic so wholly beyond 

 the scope of mortal intelligence. . 



Inasmuch as bones and tusks of the mammoth are dug up 

 in enormous quantities, over tracts now almost bare of trees, 

 and scanty as to other vegetation, certain naturalists have as- 

 sumed that, in times coeval with mammoth or mastodonic life, 

 the vegetation of these regions must have been richer than 

 now; otherwise how could such troops of enormous beasts have 

 gained their sustenance ? 



On this point Sir Charles Lyell bids us not be too affirm- 

 atively confident. He remarks that luxuriance of vegetable 

 growth is not seen, at the time being, to correspond with the 

 prevalence of the associated fauna. The northern island of 

 the New Zealand group, at the period when Europeans first 

 set foot there, was mostly covered by a luxuriant growth of 

 forest-trees, of shrubs, and grasses. Admirably adapted to 

 the being of herbivorous animals, the land was wholly devoid 

 of the same. Brazilian forests offer another case in illustra- 

 tion ; a stronger case than the wilds of New Zealand, inas- 

 much as the climate may be assumed as more congenial to the 

 development of animal life. Nowhere on earth does Nature 

 teem with an equal amount of vegetable luxuriance; yet Bra- 

 zilian forests are remarkable for the almost total absence of 

 large animals. Perhaps no present tract is so densely endowed 

 with animal life as that of South Africa. There sterility is 

 the prevailing characteristic. There forest-trees are rare, and 

 other vegetation scant. There water, too, is infrequent. 



Present examples, such as these, should make a naturalist 

 hesitate before coming to the conclusion that Siberian wilds, 

 even as now, were wholly incompatible with the existence and 

 support of troops of mammoths or mastodons. Speculating 

 as to the latest time of the existence of mastodons in Siberia, 

 a circumstance has to be noted that would seem to counten- 

 ance the belief in their existence up to a not very remote 



