THE HUMAN SPECIES. 105 



the shoulders, thin and narrow about the hind quar- 

 ters, with a large head, powerful teeth, short and thick 

 legs, paws with very long claws, body almost destitute 

 of hair, except about the hind legs ; and therefore it 

 was called " the Naked Bear." Further details are 

 furnished by the Indians, which, allowing for inade- 

 quate terminology, incorrectness in tradition and trans- 

 lation from the native dialects to English, leaves a 

 surprisingly applicable picture to a species of Mega- 

 theridce, perhaps the Jeffersonian megalonyx. The 

 colossal Elk, another name for the Mastodon, or Pere 

 aux Bceufs, points out, that with designations of exist- 

 ing species, the Indians describe extinct animals with 

 a precision, which, in the state of their information, 

 nothing but traditionary recollection of their real struc- 

 ture could have furnished. We remember seeing, in 

 the United States, a rib, supposed to have belonged to 

 a fossil ungulate species, which bore undeniable marks 

 of a wound, apparently given by some sharp instru- 

 ment of human invention. 



Tradition, in the East Indies, similarly mentions the 

 Aula or Auloc, Elephant-horse, a solid ungulated 

 proboscidean, supposed to be figured in Kindersley's 

 specimens of Hindoo literature, where the Macaira, 

 represented in Budhu zodiacs, is again seen beneath 

 the monster horse ; and, still more singularly, bears 

 the same form in a Peruvian bas-relief, always resem- 

 bling the presumed figure of Dinotherium giganteum, 

 or rather, with the characters of an aquatic probosci- 

 dean. 



