THE MASTODON 161 



mastodon and elephant the tusks, which are the repre- 

 sentatives of the cutting teeth of rodents, are wide 

 apart, and of course do not gnaw anything, but the pres- 

 ence of these enamel bands hints at a time when they 

 and their owner were smaller and differently shaped, 

 and the teeth were used for cutting. Thus, great though 

 the disparity of size may be, there is a suggestion that 

 through the mastodon the elephant is distantly related 

 to the mouse, and that, could we trace their respective 

 pedigrees far enough, we might find a common ancestor. 



This presence of structures that are apparently of no 

 use, often worse than useless, is regarded as the survival 

 of characters that once served some good purpose, like 

 the familiar buttons on the sleeve or at the back of a 

 man's coat, or the bows and ruffles on a woman's dress. 

 We are told that these are put on "to make the dress 

 look pretty," but the student regards the bows as 

 vestiges of the time when there were no buttons and 

 hooks and eyes had not been invented, and dresses were 

 tied together with strings or ribbons. As for ruffles, 

 they took the place of flounces, and flounces are vestiges 

 of the time when a young woman wore the greater part 

 of her wardrobe on her back, putting on one dress above 

 another, the bottoms of the skirts showing like so many 

 flounces. So buttons, ruffles, and the vermiform appen- 

 dix of which we hear so much all fall in the category of 

 vestigial structures. 



Where the mastodons originated, we know not: 

 Seiior Ameghino thinks their ancestors are to be found 

 in Patagonia, and he is very probably wrong; Professor 

 Cope thought they came from Asia, and he is probably 

 right; or they may have immigrated from the conven- 

 ient Antarctica, which is called up to account for vari- 

 ous facts in the distribution of animals. Neither do we 

 at present know just how many species of mastodons 



