382 Rk. BELL—HUDSON BAY MAMMOTH AND MASTODON REMAINS. 
and no doubt they did so for food. Such a large animal would always 
be a tempting object of the chase to a people depending for subsist- 
ence almost entirely on the product of their hunt. When we see that 
a few years of shooting by foreign sportsmen in Africa has reduced the 
elephants of that great continent to a mere fraction of their former num- 
bers, it is not unreasonable to suppose that systematic hunting by the 
North American Indians throughout many centuries would finally ex- 
terminate the mammoth on this continent. 
Hapsirat oF THE MAMMOTH INFERRED FROM THE ForM oF His TuUSKS 
- 
In both Asia and North America the mammoth probably preferred 
the open barren-lands or tundras to the thick woods, and in this connee- 
tion the occurrence of its remains in Alaska, the Yukon and McKenzie 
River region, in the far northwest of Canada, and on the east coast of 
Hudson bay is of much interest. The great length and the complete 
-curve of the tusks of these animals show that they were only fitted for 
traveling in such regions or in very open woods. They would be able 
to make little or no progress through the thick coniferous forests of 
Siberia or Canada. 
In 1884 I observed on Nottingham island, in Hudson strait, a curious 
fact bearing on this question in connection with the antlers of the rein- 
deer. On the mainland, where these deer may require to traverse the 
thick forest in some part of their migrations, their antlers, although 
much larger and longer than those of the woodland reindeer or caribou, 
are straight at the tips and of such a form as to be readily dragged 
through the branches of trees; but on the large island referred to there 
are no trees of any kind and the antlers of the deer are more spreading, 
while the tines are strongly curved or hooked. These peculiarities may 
be merely ornamental or they may be of service to the animal in some 
other way, but it would be impossible for him to get through any forest. 
The peculiarities of the tusks of the mammoth, which have been already 
referred to, would not only prevent the creature from traveling in thick 
woods, but they would also render the tusks useless for digging up trees, 
which is the principal use to which both African and Indian elephants. 
put their straighter tusks. These characters would also indicate that 
the mammoth was adapted only for living where it was not necessary to 
dig at the roots of trees and to pull them down, but in some region 
where he might obtain all the brush he required, as he could on the ex- 
tensive northern plains of both continents in summer, as well as among 
the small branchy trees at the edge of the forests in winter. The fact 
