ELEPHANTS IN BRITAIN 



in the interstices of its teeth, was the signal for the disappearance 

 of their most colossal inhabitant. 



The large number of remains of this and of other extinct 

 species of El&jphas in this country gave rise to the supposi- 

 tion that they were Elephants brought over by Caesar to aid 

 in the subjugation of these islands. The Eev. J. Coleridge 

 (father of the poet) pointed out that though Caesar in his 

 Commentaries made no mention of any such importation of 

 Elephants, a passage in the StratMgcms of Polyaenus expressly 

 mentions that Cassivelaunus was confronted by the Eomans with 

 an Elephant clad in a coat of mail, by whose aid the crossing of 

 the Thames was effected. At the time that attention was called 

 to this (1757) it was not popular to hint at the possibility 

 of fossils. So that fact, conveniently historical, served to 

 explain away a difficulty. It is remarkable that the Elephant, 

 common enough of course in Asiatic monuments, actually occurs 

 in Enghsh architecture. Mr. Watkins, from whose interesting 

 work {Natural Hhfnry of the Ancients) a good many of the facts 

 detailed here are drawn, tells us that the chm-ch of Ottery St. 

 ilary has an Elephant's head sculptured on one of its pillars. 

 The same ornament appears in Gosberton Chm-ch, Lincolnshire. 

 AVhether this has anything to do with a reminiscence of formerly 

 existing Elephants is a hard question to answer. In this figure 

 of an Elephant the trunk has a spiral representation, and the 

 trunk of an Elephant is believed by some to be intended by the 

 common " so-called Pictish ornamentation " in Scotland ; this 

 spiral alone is to be seen constantly. If it is a reduction of an 

 Elephant to its simplest terms, it is highly interesting as an 

 almost undoubted survival of remembrance of Elephants. For at 

 such a ]_)eriod we cannot use the memories of Crusaders or others 

 who may have visited the East to explain the facts. The 

 sculptured Elephants' heads might conceivaldy be so explained. 



The name Mammoth, thinks Mr. Watkins, may be derivable 

 from the Arabic word Behemoth. He quotes a writer, who first 

 described the beast in 1694, as using the two words indifferently. 

 The Aral is, moreover, were then as they are now great ivory traders ; 

 and in the ninth and the two succeeding centuries explored 

 the confines of Siberia, as they now do the forests of Africa, for 

 ivory. The " Behemoth " of J(j1 ) " eateth grass as an ox. He 



moveth his tail like a cedar " (the Hippopotamus has a much more 



