a 
H. H. Howorth—The Mammoth in Siberia. 493 
Manners and Customs of the Ostiaks, reports how he had been told 
by several people that they had seen these animals beyond the 
Beresowa in the caverns in the high mountains of those districts. 
They reported them as eight or ten feet in height, and about eighteen 
feet long, of a grey colour, with a long head, broad forehead, and 
having a horn on either side just below the eyes, which they could 
move about, and cross one over another as they pleased. It was 
said that when walking they could stretch themselves considerably, 
and could also shrink into a small space. Their legs in size were 
like those of the bear. After criticizing these stories, which clearly 
point to their relators having seen some Mammoth carcases intact, 
he goes on to discuss the opinion of those who merely deemed the 
bones lusus nature. This he contests, on the ground that many 
times it had been noticed that the bones were bloody when the 
roots were broken, and that a cavity filled with clotted blood was 
often to be seen near the end (id. pp. 159, 160). 
Laptef, who travelled along the northern coast of Siberia during 
the reign of the Empress Anne, 1789—1743, writes: ‘On the 
banks of several rivers on the Tundra, whole Mammoths with their 
tusks are dug out with thick hides on them. Their hair and bodies 
are however rotten, while the bones, except the tusks, are also 
decaying.” He describes the heads of the animals as like those of a 
Horse, while their teeth were thick, flat, and not longer than three 
inches, a description which made Middendorf suppose he had seen 
the heads of the fossil Rhinoceros, which are like those of a Horse. 
It is probable he confused the two animals, of which he had heard 
or seen specimens. 
The next notice we have of the finding of one of these preserved 
animals refers to the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, and not the Mammoth. 
A head and foot of the Rhinoceros were taken to Pallas, when he 
was at Irkutsk in 1772. The complete animal had been found in 
the preceding December at Wiljui, about 64 versts below Yakutsk, 
and it had then begun to putrefy. The head and three feet were 
sent to Irkutsk, and the fourth foot to Yakutsk. One of the feet was 
destroyed by being dried too quickly; the other remains were de- 
scribed in a famous memoir by Pallas, and later by Brandt. They are 
still to be seen in the Zoological Museum at Petersburgh. Pallas did 
not himself visit the site where the body was found, but was told by 
the person who had sent him the remains that the carcase was half 
buried in the sand a fathom from the water of the river, and four 
fathoms from a high steep bank. It was covered with a thick hide, 
over which were some scattered tufts of hair. The beast had clearly 
not been long where it was found, and had probably been detached 
from the bank in the spring floods of the years 1769 or 1770, and 
the sand in which it was found buried was probably a portion of 
the matrix which surrounded him in his grave. (Pallas, de reliquiis 
animalium per Asiam borealem, etc., Nov. Comm. St. Peter. Acad. 
vol. xvii. p. 576). 
In 1787, Sarytschef, who accompanied Billing in his well-known 
journey through Siberia, was sent in company with Dr. Merk and 
