364 THE BOOK OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM 



the shaggy coat provided fair protection from the cold. Probably 

 the Mammoth often roved too near to the edge of the glaciers and 

 was entrapped in an avalanche, with the inevitable consequence — 

 death; its remains being discovered centuries later, to the astonish- 

 ment of curious humanity. The territory of the Mammoth would be 

 restricted in glacial times, but its extent would be greatly increased 

 during a warm interval, and perhaps even more so when the glacial 

 period came to a close. 



The Mammoth, we must remember, was in existence when the 

 earliest men roamed the earth in search of food and clothing. The 

 requirements of primitive man were simple, but he often had to go 

 far afield to secure them. A water-worn cave or overhanging ledge 

 of rock was accepted for shelter, the skins of animals served for 

 clothing and their flesh for food. Failing flesh food, or fish or 

 fowl, fruits, nuts and roots, and even grubs and worms might be 

 made to minister to his appetite. Our Palaeolithic (old stone age) 

 ancestors must have been mighty hunters. They pursued with 

 success the Bison, Horse, Cave-Bear, Rhinoceros and Reindeer. 

 But the Mammoth was probably their most exciting quarry. We 

 can imagine them eagerly looking for signs of their presence, track- 

 ing them by their spoor to their haunts, making traps for them and 

 when caught killing them with flint-tipped arrows and spears, after- 

 wards flaying them with their rudely-shaped flint knives and scrapers. 

 After spending many weary days in their hunt, we can understand 

 these primitive men, tired and hungry, gorging themselves with their 

 vittim's carcass, breaking their bones to secure the coveted marrow, 

 and storing hide and sinews, splints of bone and tusks for use in 

 their daily avocations. Perhaps it was primitive man who drove 

 the Mammoth northwards, pressing him ever closer and closer to 

 the ice, making his existence a constant terror. The extinction of 

 our shaggy subject is not difficult to understand. The brains of 

 man were too quick and subtle for him. Man interfered with his 

 breeding, captured the young when they happened to come to the 

 birth, and literally hunted him to extinction. The experience of 

 the Mammoth in the Northern Hemisphere was probably akin to that 

 of the Mylodons of South America. 



The cave men of La Madelaine, in France, must have had some 

 artistic feeling. At least one of their number was an artist, for he 

 has left us a memorial of his ability in the form of a Mammoth well 

 engraved upon Mammoth ivory. This is an interesting, tell-tale 



