116 MIGHTY ANIMALS 



that they belonged to one of these animals which, 

 in its wanderings, had lost its way and, coming 

 to the surface of the earth, had died from breath- 

 ing the air and seeing the light. The Chinese had 

 a similar belief about the big bones found in their 

 country. 



Although the elephants began to be the rulers of 

 the animal world long before any people lived, some 

 of them were still on earth when man first ap- 

 peared. These were the Mammoths. We know that 

 this was so because Mammoth bones have been 

 found in places where there are signs that man once 

 made his home. In France a piece of fossil ivory 

 has been discovered with the outline of a Mammoth 

 sketched upon it. This drawing was the work of 

 some one who lived long before people expressed 

 themselves by the use of written words. For 

 those first men and women and children had but 

 little more intelligence than the animals which were 

 their neighbors. They lived in caves and hunted 

 these animals for their flesh and skins. And there 

 were plenty of animals to hunt besides the Mam- 

 moth. For the bear, hyena, and ox, the bison and 



