ELEPHANTS. Si 



earlier or " Eocene " period contains no elephant fossils, and it may 

 have been that in this Eocene age, which beheld the first beginnings 

 of nearly all the existing quadruped races, the evolution of the 

 elephant stock from its ancestry was taking place. Leaving for the 

 present the consideration of the probable root of the elephantine 

 tree, we thus discover in the Miocene period the first beginnings of 

 elephant existence. In this period the mastodons roamed over 

 Europe and India, whilst in this age also the deinotheriums, with 

 their great lower tusks, made their first appearance on the stage 

 of time. As the geological series progressed, and as the Pliocene 

 age succeeded the Miocene times, we discover the elephants in 

 increasing numbers. The Miocene, with its relatively few elephantine 

 forms, contrasts forcibly with the increase of those animals in the 

 succeeding age. Europe and India harbour its Pliocene elephants, 

 as we have seen ; whilst both Europe and America in this latter age 

 possessed the mastodons. The Post-Pliocene period, however, 

 dawns in turn, to find the mastodons still existent in North America, 

 but unknown in Europe ; whilst the mammoth now appears as a 

 representative form, along with survivals of the European elephants 

 of the Pliocene time. The " pigmy elephants " of Malta also belong 

 to the Post-Pliocene age. 



It is, therefore, tolerably clear that a distinct succession of types of 

 elephantine forms has appeared on the earth's surface, beginning with 

 elephants which, like the deinotherium and mastodon, differ from 

 existent species, and ending with elephants which, like the mammoth 

 or the European elephants of the Pliocene, more or less closely 

 resembled the quadruped giants of to-day. It becomes interesting, 

 further, to trace out the later history of the race before the bearings 

 of these facts on the origin of the elephant race are discussed. The 

 mammoth, for example, certainly survived the "ice age," to the 

 irruption of which was probably due the extinction of the other 

 elephantine forms. We know of this survival because its remains 

 occur in " recent " or " post-glacial " deposits. We are also certain 

 that early man must have beheld the mammoth as a living, breathing 

 reality, for its remains have been found associated with the rude 

 implements of early men, and a rough portrait of the great red- 

 haired elephant has been discovered, scratched on one of its tusks 

 a rude but unquestionable tribute of early art to the science of 

 zoology. Its woolly hair, protecting it against the rigours of the ice 

 age, may have enabled it to survive that period, which was apparently 

 so fatal to elephant life at large. 



Summing up the details we have thus collated, from the geological 

 side, we may now face the problem of the origin of the elephant 

 race. Not that the problem itself is fully answerable, for our know- 

 ledge of the elephant race in the past is yet of comparatively limited 



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