MAM MO I US AM) M AS/l ) /)().\S ^'> 



Tlic inaxiinmn ol* size is rcacluMl in (lie r-Avly lM('i>l<)<('iu' ('l('|)Iianls of 

 Imii"()|)(' and N«)i"lli America A'. (infi(iiins, E. lucnilionnlis, I], itn pcnihtr. 

 liiil lluMiiammolli >ii()\\ > I Ik* extreme ol" speeiali/al ion in I lie urindin^i teel li, 

 I he enamel ei"e>ls moi'e mnnei()U> and closer >el than an\' other sj)ecies. 



Origin and Dispersal of the Proboscidea. 'V\\v fact that tlie ohle>t 

 and inosi |)rimiti\(' i-emains of ance-.lial |)i-()l)()sci(leans liaxc heen found 

 in l\iiy|)t has heen connnonly taken as |)r()()f thai the oiif^inal home of the 

 order was in Africa. This may or may not he true. The a))sence of any 

 ancestral i)rol)()scideans from the early Tertiary faunas of Knro|)e and of 

 the New World affords indeed reas()n;d)ly conclusive e\'idence that they 

 did not ori«>inate in those regions, and more indirect but fairly good evi- 

 dence that they did not originate in the intervening regions of northern 

 and central Asia from which a large i)art of their Tertiary faunas .seems to 

 have been derived. But of the early Tertiary faunas of southern Asia 

 and of Afriea we know nothing at all, save for the Fayum faunas of nortli- 

 ern Egypt, an area which is today transitional in its fauna between the two 

 great regions, and decidedly more Asiatic than African in its affinities. 

 While it is wholly })robable that certain elements of the Fayum fauna 

 rej^resent groups of early African origin, others are clearly of Asiatic- 

 affinities. It is not yet clear whether the Proboscidea are a group of 

 Ethiopian or of Oriental origin. The choice is practically limited to these 

 two regions. 



The later evolution of the mastodons into the elephants appears to 

 have taken place in the Oriental region, since intermediate stages are 

 absent from the later Tertiary faunas of all the other regions, and a full 

 series is found in India. But with the oncoming of the Glacial cold, the 

 dispersal centre seems to have shifted to the north, for we find both in 

 Europe and North America the highly specialized mammoth and mastodon 

 spreading outwards from the north, and replacing other species more gigan- 

 tic in size but less specialized in teeth. Today we find the African ele- 

 I)hant, huge but somewhat primitive, surviving in a somew^hat isolated 

 tropical continent, and the Indian elephant, more progressive in its teeth 

 but less so than the mammoth, surviving in tropical Asia, while the last 

 step in specialization, the northern mammoth, after overrunning three 

 continents in the later Pleistocene, has been completely swept away, 

 following his predecessors in the northern countries to extinction. That 

 the same fate awaits the African and Indian elephant, save as they may be 

 preserved artificially in parks or by domestication, can hardly be doubted 

 Alan has witnessed or aided in the extinction, during the short time that 

 he has occupied the globe, of many magnificent types of the larger quadru- 

 peds — but none so gigantic in size or so remarkable for peculiarities of 

 structure and habits as are the great Proboscidea. That we have been 

 able through the researches of science to preserve and reconstruct the 



