2 1 8 PROBOSCIDIA . 



ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. Mammoth. 



Elephas primigenius, BLUMENBACH, Voigt's Maga- 



zine, Bd. v. 



Elephant fossile ou Mammouth des Russes, CUVIER, Annales du Museum, 



torn. viii. Ossem. Fossiles, t. i. 



Fossil Elephant, BUCKLAND, Reliquiae Diluvi- 



an:i>, p. 171. 



Elephas primigenius or Mammoth, OWEN, Report of British Asso- 



ciation, 1843. 



WHEN the science of fossil organic remains was less 

 advanced than it is at present, when its facts and generali- 

 zations were new, and sounded strange not only to ears 

 unscientific but to anatomists and naturalists, the an- 

 nouncement of the former existence of animals in countries 

 where the like had not been known within the memory of 

 man, still more of species that had never been seen alive 

 in any part of the world, was received with distrust and 

 doubt, and many endeavours were made to explain these 

 phenomena by reference to circumstances which experience 

 showed to have led to the introduction of tropical animals 

 into temperate zones within the historical period. 



When Cuvier first announced the presence of remains of 

 Elephants, Rhinoceroses and Hippopotamuses in the super- 

 ficial unstratified deposits of continental Europe, he was 

 reminded of the Elephants that were introduced into Italy 

 by Pyrrhus in the Roman wars, and afterwards more 

 abundantly, and with the stranger quadrupeds of con- 

 quered tropical countries, in the Roman triumphs and 

 games of the amphitheatre. The minute anatomical 

 distinctions by which the great Comparative Anatomist 

 proved the disinterred fossils to have belonged to extinct 

 species of Elephas, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, Sic., were 

 at first hardly appreciated, and, by some of his contem- 

 poraries, were explained away or disallowed. Cuvier, 



