PACHYDERMATA. 



I.— PACHYDERMATA. 



CHAP. I. PROBOSCIDEA.— ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 

 § 1. — General Remarks. 



The fossil remains of the Proboscidean Pachydermata have in 

 all ages attracted more attention, both from the learned and from 

 the unlearned, than perhaps those of any other family of extinct 

 animals. Until a comparatively late period in Europe, and at 

 the present time in all countries where the light of anatomy cannot 

 be brought to bear in solving the mystery of their indications, the 

 enormous bones of this tribe, when disinterred from the earth, have 

 been regarded as demonstrative evidence of the former existence 

 of Titans, Giants, and other fabulous beings handed down to us in 

 the records of superstition and mythology. Like the Greeks and 

 Romans of old, the people of India even now, usually refer such 

 remains to- the Rakshas or Titans, who hold so prominent a place 

 in the ancient writings of that country. The severe investigations 

 of modern science, have expelled these fictions from the belief of 

 civilized mankind ; and reconstructed the true forms of the animals 

 which appear in many instances to have given rise to them. 

 Palaeontology made, as it were, its first great advance in the 

 exact determination by Cuvier of the Mammoth of Siberia, and 

 the Mastodon of North America. Since that time several new 

 forms have been discovered, and most of the great points con- 

 nected with the structure of the Proboscidea, fossil and recent, 

 have been ascertained. But, notwithstanding the vast amount of 

 observation on the subject during late years, a great difference 

 of opinion has prevailed among Comparative Anatomists and 

 palaeontologists, down even to the period when we now write, in 

 regard to the degree of affinity and generic relations of the diffe- 

 rent species of Mastodon and Elephant. The majority of late 

 authorities, including Cuvier and Owen, have regarded them as 

 constituting two distinct and well marked, although closely-allied 



