428 UNGULATA 
Among the best known extinct Elephants is £. primigenius, the 
Mammoth,! very closely resembling the existing Indian species, and 
one of the most recently extinct and extensively distributed of all 
the fossil forms. Probably no animal which has not survived to 
the historic period has left such abundant and well-preserved evi- 
dence of its former existence. The discovery of immense numbers, 
not only, as in the case of most extinct creatures, in the form of 
fragmentary bones and teeth, but often as more or less nearly 
entire carcases, or “mummies,” as they may be called, with the 
flesh, skin, and hair im situ, in the frozen soil of the tundras of 
Northern Siberia, has for along time given great interest to the 
species, and been the cause of many legendary stories among the 
natives of the lands in which they occur. Among these one of the 
most prevailing is that the Mammoth was, or still is, an animal which 
passes its life habitually in burrows below the surface of the ground, 
and immediately dies if by any chance it comes into the upper air. 
Of the whole group the Mammoth is in many respects, as in the 
size and form of the tusks, and especially the characters of the 
molar teeth, the farthest removed from the primitive Mastodon-like 
type, while its nearest surviving relative, £. indicus, has retained 
the slightly more generalised characters of the Mammoth’s con- 
temporaries of more southern climes, Z. columbi of America, and 
L. armeniacus of the Old World, if, indeed, it can be specifically 
distinguished from them. 
The tusks or upper incisor teeth were doubtless present in both 
sexes, but probably of smaller size in the female. In the adult 
males they often attained the length of from 9 to 10 feet measured 
along the outer curve. Upon leaving the head they were directed 
at first downwards and outwards, then upwards and finally inwards 
at the tips, and generally with a tendency to a spiral form not seen 
in other species of Elephant. Different specimens, however, present 
great variations in curve, from nearly straight to an almost com- 
plete circle. 
It is chiefly by the characters of the molar teeth that the 
various extinct modifications of the Elephant type are distinguished. 
Those of the Mammoth (Fig. 185) differ from the corresponding 
organs of allied species in the great breadth of the crown as 
compared with the length, the narrowness and close approximation of 
the ridges, the thinness of the enamel and its straightness, parallel- 
ism, and absence of “ crimping,” as scen on the worn surface, or in a 
horizontal section of the tooth. Dr. Falconer gave the prevailing 
? The word Mammoth was introduced into the languages of Western Europe 
about two centuries ago from the Russian, and is thought by Pallas and Norden- 
skiéld to be of Tartar origin, but others, as Witzen, Strahlenburg, and Howorth, 
have endeavoured to prove that it is a corruption of the Arabic word Behemoth, 
or great beast. 
