THEIR FOOD. 291 



ever a certain result lias been arrived at regarding the 

 alimentary habits of the extinct Mammalia of the Glacial 

 period, it has only been by discovering the remains of the 

 food itself in some of the organs of digestion. We have the 

 authority of Brandt for the fact, that he extracted from the 

 pits of the molar teeth of the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, of which 

 the carcass was obtained by Pallas from the banks of the 

 Wiljui, part of the albuminous seed of a Polygoneous plant, 

 portions of Pine leaves, and minute fragments of coniferous 

 wood, characterized by the distinctive porous cells. 1 In like 

 manner, four cases have been described in North America, 

 where the contents of the stomach and intestines of Mastodon 

 Ohioticus appear to have been preserved along with the 

 skeletons ; and the facts recorded by different observers are 

 so much in accordance as to leave little room for doubt on 

 the subject. 2 Broken pieces of branches, varying from 

 slender twigs to boughs half an inch in diameter and about 

 two inches long, were found mixed up with more finely 

 divided vegetable matter, like comminuted leaves, in one 

 case to the amount of from four to six bushels. We have 

 the authority of Gceppert for the fact, that twigs of the 

 existing coniferous Thuia occidentalis were identified in the 

 stomach of the New Jersey Mastodon ; and of Professor Asa 

 Gray and Dr. Carpenter, both eminent microscopical ob- 

 servers, that the stomach of the Newburgh Mastodon con- 

 tained fragments of the boughs of ' some coniferous tree or 

 shrub, and probably some kind of spruce or fir (Gray) ; and 

 also fragments of a quite different kind of wood (not coni- 

 ferous), which from its decomposed and carbonaceous state 

 was not determinable (Carpenter).' But these observations 

 do not, in the slightest degree, advance our knowledge as to 

 the probable food of the Mammoth ; residuary bits of stick, 

 half an inch in diameter, are reconcilable with the mastica- 

 tory operation of the rude open valleys and Trilophodont 

 ridges of the molars of the American Mastodon ; but in the 

 highest degree improbable as a result of the multiplex divi- 

 sions of the flat molar crown of the Mammoth. We must be 

 content to remain in the dark on this question, until the 

 same kind of observation is applied to the contents of the 

 stomach of the latter in Siberia, 3 as has been so successfully 

 effected with the allied genus in North America. 



1 Leonhard and Bronn's 'Jahrbuch,' 

 1846, p. 378 ; and Bronn's Lethaea 

 Geognost,, band. iii. p, 855. 



2 Warren. ' Mastodon Giganteus,' p. 

 166. 



8 In the researches upon the latest 

 discovered Mammoths in Siberia, of 



which the details have been published, 

 the remains of the brain, muscles, ton- 

 dons, and periosteum have been micro- 

 scopically examined, but not the contents 

 of the stomach. ( Vide Gleboff, Bullet, 

 Societ. Imper. de Moscou, 1846, six. 2, 

 p. 108, et seq.) 



V 2 



