MAMMOTH, AND WOOLLY-HAIRED RHINOCEROS. 239 



to the Felis tigris, and that it may eventually prove to be 

 the lineal descendant and living representative of the 

 F. spelcea. 



The geographical range of the mammoth was very ex- 

 tensive. Its remains are found in North America, from 

 Behring's Straits to South Carolina, and in the old con- 

 tinent, from the furthest extremity of Siberia, to the extreme 

 west of Europe ; it crossed the Alps, and established itself 

 in Italy, but it has not yet been discovered south of the 

 Pyrenees. Neither the mammoth nor the woolly-haired 

 rhinoceros have been found in any stratum anterior to the 

 river- drift gravels. M. Lartet, however, follows Murchi- 

 son, De Verneuil, and Keyserling in believing that these 

 animals lived in Siberia long before they found their way 

 into Europe ; that, in fact, they belonged to the tertiary fauna 

 of Northern Asia, though they did not make their appear- 

 ance in Europe until the quaternary period. So far then as 

 Europe is concerned, these two species seem to have made 

 their appearance at a later date, and they perhaps survived 

 a more recent period than the Ursus spelceus. 



They are, indeed, very characteristic of the river-drift de- 

 posits, and are found also in the loess of the Rhine and its 

 principal tributaries, but they have not yet been met with in 

 the peat bogs. They never occur in the Ejokkenmoddings, 

 the Lake-habitations, or the tumuli, nor is there the slightest 

 tradition which can be regarded as indicating, even in the 

 most obscure manner, a recollection of the existence in 

 Europe of these two gigantic Pachyderms. 



The magnificent Irish elk, or Megaceros hibernicus, which 

 attained a heigbt of ten feet four inches, with horns mea- 

 suring eleven feet from tip to tip, appears to have had a 

 much more restricted range. Its remains have been found 

 in Germany as far as Silesia, in France down to the Pyrenees, 

 and it appears even to have crossed the Alps. It seems, 



