THEIR FOOD. 289 



Europe, as in the asserted case of the Mammoth of Northern 

 Asia. 



Again, let tis take the case of the Mammoth of Texas, and 

 of the other Southern States, bordering the Gulf of Mexico. 

 It will hardly he asserted, at the present day, that the same 

 arboreous vegetation extended from the upper parts of the 

 valleys of the Obi and Irtish across northern Asia, and from 

 Behring's Straits across the surface of North America to the 

 warm latitude of the Gulf of Mexico. Granted that the 

 refrigeration of the Glacial period extended so far south, it 

 must have been greatly modified in intensity by the southern 

 latitude, as it was in the south of Europe; and that modification 

 was incompatible with a tree vegetation restricted to pines, 

 birches, poplars, willows, and junipers. We further know, 

 that when the Mammoth pastured along the margins of 

 the great swamps of Ohio and Kentucky, the vegetation then 

 was nearly identical with what it is now, being very different 

 from that of Siberia. 



An inconsistency of the advocates of the doctrine here 

 combated is worthy of notice. While so strongly insisting 

 on the special relation between the teeth of the Mammoth 

 and the leafless tree vegetation on which he fed during 

 winter, it was asserted that the variety of molar on which 

 E. meridionalis is founded occurs not only in England but in 

 Siberia, and as far north as Eschscholtz Bay. 1 It is well 

 known that the teeth of the latter species possess characters 

 which are very different from those of the former ; having 

 thick enamel-plates, which are few in number and wide apart. 

 The special adaptation, between the teeth and food, which 

 held in the one was therefore absent in the other, although, 

 under the view here referred to, they were both said to be 

 found in the same Arctic localities, where they must both 

 have subsisted on the same impoverished Flora. 



The state of our exact knowledge, at the present time, 

 regarding the duration, geographical range, climate, habits, 

 and food of the Mammoth, appears to be thus. The species 

 existed before the Glacial period in Europe, and survived 

 long after it in Europe or America. The constitutional 

 flexibility, which is implied by its ' dicyclotherian ' term in 

 time, is equally evinced in its vast geographical range of 

 habitat ; extending from the valley of the Tiber to the Lena, 

 and from Eschscholtz Bay to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Making due allowance for the interference of the glacial 

 phenomena, the extremes of north and south latitude, in 

 which undoubted remains of this ancient Elephant have 

 been found, necessarily imply that his constitutional flexi- 



1 Brit. Foss. Maram., p. 238. 

 VOL. II. U 



