FOOD A X D II A I R. 



147 



or, as it was called a.t the time, a Mammoth, in Wythe County, Virginia, round in 



Virginia. 



And, although the Bishop did not examine the supposed food himself, yet, 

 as its description accords with that found with the other skeletons, there 

 seems to be ground for a presumption of their identity. 



Professor Mitchell, in the Appendix to "Cuvier's Theory," at page 376, Found m 



Goshen, 



speaking of another skeleton, says: "Beneath the bones, and immediately n.y. 

 around them, was a stratum of coarse vegetable stems and films resembling 

 chopped straw, or rather drift stuff of the sea ; for it seemed to be mixed 

 with broken fibres of conferva, like those of the Atlantic shore." This 

 specimen was found in Chester, near Goshen, Orange County, 1ST. Y. 



The correspondence of these appearances, in at least four different conclusions, 

 places, affords strong, we may say satisfactory, reasons for believing that 

 the Mastodon was a vegetable feeder, and subsisted, like the elephant, the 

 hippopotamus, and rhinoceros, on the tender branches of trees with their 

 leaves, on rushes and other aquatic plants. This opinion is confirmed by 

 two facts : first, no substances having a similar appearance have been found 

 in other bogs ; second, there was no intermixture of gravel or any other 

 foreign substances with the supposed alimentary matters. 



Dr. William Hunter, as before said, noticing the points or mammillary 

 eminences of the teeth, received the impression that this animal was car- 

 niverous. This opinion of the distinguished British anatomist was corrected 

 by Cuvier, who demonstrated that the nipple-shaped cones of the Mastodon 

 tooth possessed a different character from the flat serrated grinders of the 

 lion, tiger, and wolf. As the branches of most of the forest-trees would 

 have been too dry and woody to serve the purpose of food, the animal was 

 compelled to resort to the bogs, the rivers, and lakes, where it was fre- 

 quently betrayed to enter so far as to become involved in the yielding 



