WOOLLY COAT OF SIBERIAN MAMMOTH. 381 
that they had been accustomed for a great length of time to a severe 
climate. Although the Indian elephant inhabits a warm country, it is 
a well known fact that he is intolerant of great heat and suffers much 
when exposed to the direct rays of the sun in that climate. In the wild 
_ state he seeks the cool shade and wanders about at night or in the early 
morning. 
Notwithstanding the heat of the climate of India, it has lately been. 
discovered that the elephant of that country retains traces of wool like 
that which formerly clothed the mammoth. The presence or absence 
of wool or of a thicker or thinner coat of hair or fur on a mammal does 
not often constitute an important specific character. On the highlands 
of Tibet, where the climate is cold in winter, the domestic goat and the 
mastiff dog produce fine wool under their hair. In Canada we have ex- 
amples of the same kind of growth in at least two of our common mam- 
mals, the moose and the porcupine. In the country on the south side 
of the Saint Lawrence, below Quebec, I have seen quantities of very fine 
brown wool taken from beneath the hair of moose killed in the middle 
of winter, which the French Canadian women were manufacturing into 
stockings and mittens of a superior quality. The porcupine ranges far 
north, and in the region west of Hudson bay he is covered in winter with 
a very deep coat of wool, through which his quills and long coarse hairs 
project but a short distance. Further south these animals have little or 
no wool, and in the hot weather I have occasionally seen them entirely 
destitute of both hair and quills, their naked black skins resembling that 
of a Chinese dog. 
DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MAMMOTH FROM EUROPE AND AMERICA 
The mammoth lived in Europe before the Glacial period, and he prob- 
ably had a wider range in the same continent after that epoch. His 
final extinction in this region may have been due to human agency. As 
population increased and the forests became traversed in all directions 
by highways, and after wide spaces had been cleared by different races 
of men, the mammoths would find it difficult to maintain their footing. 
They do not appear to have ranged into Norway or to the southward of 
the Pyrenees and were very rare in Scotland and Ireland. The geo- 
graphical boundaries at that time of certain kinds of trees which they 
preferred for food may have been the cause of thus limiting their dis- 
tribution. ; 
In North America the last of the mammoths may have been killed off 
by the aborigines. There is evidence that they hunted these creatures, 
