248 



THE WORLD OF LIFE 



CHAP. 



" From the northern half of the Old World have disappeared the 

 mammoth, the elasmothere (a very peculiar, huge rhinoceros, whose 

 skull was more than three feet long), the woolly and other rhino- 

 ceroses, the sabre-toothed tigers, etc. ; North America has lost the 

 megalonyx and the Ohio mastodon ; from South America, the glypto- 

 donts, mylodons, the megalothere, and the macrauchenia have been 

 swept away ; while Australia no longer possesses the diprotodon 

 and various gigantic species of kangaroos and wombats. In the 

 northern hemisphere this impoverishment of the fauna has been 

 very generally attributed to the effects of the glacial period, but, 

 although this may have been a partial cause, it can hardly be the 

 only one. The mammoth, for instance, certainly lived during a 

 considerable portion of the glacial epoch, and if it survived thus 

 far, why should it disappear at the close ? Moreover, all the 

 European mastodons and the southern elephant (Elephas meridion- 

 alis) died out before the incoming of glacial conditions ; and the 

 same is true of all the extinct elephants and mastodons of Southern 

 Asia. Further, a large number of English geologists believe the 

 brick earths of the Thames valley, which contain remains of rhino- 

 ceroses and elephants in abundance, to be of post-glacial age. 

 As regards the southern hemisphere, it can hardly be contended 

 that glacial conditions prevailed there at the same time as in the 

 northern half of the world. 



" It is thus evident that, though a very great number of large 

 mammals were exterminated (perhaps partly by the aid of human 

 agency) at the close of the Pleistocene period, when the group had 

 attained its maximum development as regards the bodily size of its 

 members, yet other large forms had been steadily dying out in 

 previous epochs. And it would seem that there must be some 

 general, deep-seated cause affecting the life of a species with which 

 we are at present unacquainted. Indeed, as there is a term to the 

 life of an individual, what is more natural than that there should 

 also be one to the existence of a species. It still remains indeed, 

 to account for the fact that the larger Pleistocene mammals had 

 no successors in the greater part of the world, but perhaps is in 

 some way connected with the advent of man." l 



It is sometimes thought that early man, with only the 

 rudest weapons, would be powerless against large and often 

 well-armed mammals. But this, I think, is quite a mistake. 

 No weapon is more effective for this purpose than the spear, 

 of various kinds, when large numbers of hunters attack a 

 single animal ; and when made of tough wood, with the 

 point hardened by fire and well sharpened, it is as effective 



1 Lydekker's Geographical History of Mammals, p. iS. 



