198 



JR. S. Lull — Evolution of the Elephant. 



mammoths fed upon harsh grasses and the needles and cones 

 of the fir and other conifers, mingled with moss. The hairy 

 coat, another adaptation to extreme cold, was of three sorts, 

 an inner coat of reddish wool, next a longer, fawn-colored coat 

 outside of which were long, black bristles, especialhy on certain 

 parts of the body, as the neck, back, and chest. Jt is interest- 

 ing to note that in the Indian elephant, the nearest living ally 

 of the maoimoth, there is, at birth, a complete coat of rather 

 long hair which is shed in a few weeks except that in the moun- 

 tain region of the Malay peninsula elephants are reported to 

 be persistently hairy. This points to an ancestral hairy condi- 

 tion atavistically developed in later types when necessitated by 

 cold. A similar development is seen in the Manchurian tiger, 

 in form and markings precisely like its tropical cousin, the sleek 

 Bengal tiger, but with a long, thick fur which defies the cold 

 of a climate as severe as that of New England. 



Fig. 26. St. Petersburg Mammoth of 1806. 



The hairy mammoth was circumpolar in distribution, rang- 

 ing from Europe across the north of Asia as far as 70° north 

 latitude to the eastern part of the United States, its southern 

 limit overlapping the northern range of Elephas columbi. 



Of Elephas primigenius the museum at Yale contains sev- 

 eral important specimens : Molar teeth from Minnesota and 

 Washington state. A fine jaw from Nebraska with teeth 

 nearly as coarsely ridged as those of Elephas columbi. Molars 

 from England and Siberia, tusks from Alaska, hair from an 

 Alaskan ice cliff and a piece of hide from the Siberian mam- 

 moth brought to St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1806. 



Modern Elephants. 

 The African elephants are the more primitive in the character 

 of the teeth with their broad lozenge-shaped lamellae, unless, 

 as has recently been suggested, they are in this respect degen- 

 erate. The African forms included by some authorities under 



