Animals Before Man 



urged to investigate ca/refully, whenever possi- 

 ble, the conditions under which remains of the 

 mastodon have been found.* 



In Europe the record of the immediate past 

 is much more clearly written than it is in North 

 America, and we are absolutely sure that man, 

 the mammoth, the cave bear, and the horse 

 were contemporaries. 



The Mastodon, too, was no taller than a 

 large Indian elephant, though a little more 

 heavily built, with a longer, flatter head, and 

 frequently with strongly recurved tusks, though 

 the shape of these was very variable. Still 

 this, the last of the mastodons, seems to have 

 been a little larger than any of his predecessors, 

 even if not so large as he is popularly supposed 

 to be. 



We are quite in the dark as to the reasons 

 for the disappearance of such large mammals 

 as the mammoth, mastodon, and horse, and the 

 case of the latter is particularly puzzling. We 



* A somewhat fuller discussion of this question may be found 

 in Animals of the Past and the writer can only reiterate what is 

 said there. He believes that man and mastodon were contempo- 

 rary, but has not seen any good evidence that such was the case. 



268 



