DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF ANIMALS. 



195 



busard. They are all of less mag-nitude than the great mastodon ; and, from 

 the character of the teeth, there is no doubt that all the species were grazing 

 animals. 



The fossil elephant, to which I have just referred, the proper mammoth 

 of natural history, makes a nearer approach to the Asiatic than to the African 

 living species ; but it nevertheless differs so much from both, as to leave no 

 question of its being an entirely extinct animal. Various relics of it, as 

 bones and teeth, have been found scattered over almost every part of Europe, 

 as well as in Asia and both Americas ; occasionally in our own island, in 

 the Isle of Sheppey, and in Ireland. But they are more common, and in a 

 far more perfect state, in Sweden, Norway, Poland, and especially in Asiatic 

 Russia ; and M. Cuvier inclines to a belief tliat the bones of Archbishop 

 Pontoppidan's giants of the north are nothing more than remains of this ani- 

 mal. The most perfect specimen of this kind that has ever been met with, 

 was discovered, in the year 1799, by a Tungusian fisherman. It appeared at 

 this time like a shapeless mass, projecting from an ice-bank near the mouth 

 of a river in the north of Siberia. Year after year a larger and a larger por- 

 tion of the animal was rendered visible by the melting of the ice in which it 

 was imbedded ; but it was not till five years after the first detection that its 

 enormous carcass became entirely disengaged, and fell down from an ice- 

 crag upon a sand-bank, on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The greater part 

 of its flesh was soon afterward devoured by the white bear, or cut away by 

 the .Tuhuts of the neighbourhood, as food for their dogs ; yet when, in 1806, 

 Mr. Adams examined it on the spot, and carefully collected all its remaining 

 parts, more than thirty pounds weight of its hair and bristles were gathered 

 from the wet sand-bank into which they had been trampled; and the mass 

 of extremely thick and heavy skin, which was still left, demanded the utmost 

 exertions of ten men for its removal. 



The other extinct animals of the same class and order, collected or described 

 by M. Cuvier, are a fossil rhinoceros, sufficiently distinguished from the only 

 two species at present known ; two unknown species of the hippopotamus ; 

 and two of the tapir. 



Of the fossil rhinoceros, the earliest specimens noticed were those described 

 by Grew, and consist of bones dug out of alluvial soil near Canterbury. 

 Since which period, other relics have been traced in various parts of Germany, 

 France, and Italy ; while, in Siberia, an entire animal has been discovered, 

 with its flesh and skin little injured. Of the two developed species of fossil 

 hippopotamus, there is a doubt whether the largest, found in the alluvial soil 

 of France and Italy, may not belong to an extant species ; but the other, 

 which is not larger than a hog, is strongly characterized, and widely different 

 from either of the two living species of the present day. The two discovered 

 species of fossil tapir evince a like difference of size, the one being small, the 

 other gigantic ; while both are found in different parties of France, Germany, 

 and Italy. 



All these belong to the pachydermatous or warrior-order of the mammal 

 class, which may, perhaps, be regarded as the richest of all the divisions of 

 fossil animals. But there is no class or order without like examples : and 

 the caves of Gaylenreuth, on the frontiers of Bayreuth, as examined by 

 Esper, have furnished quite as extensive a variety as the quarries around Paris. 

 He has hence derived two entirely extinct species of bear, one of the size of 

 the horse ; several species of the dog ; one of the cat ; and two of the weasel : 

 all of which are possibly extinct, though there is a doubt respecting one or 

 two of them. In these caves alone, indeed, according to M. Esper, the enor- 

 mous mass of animal earth, the prodigious number of teeth, jaws, and other 

 bones, and the heavy grouping of the stalactites, render the place a fit temple 

 for the God of Death. Hundreds of cart-loads of bony remains might be 

 removed, and numerous bags be loaded with fossil teeth, almost without 

 being missed. 



The fossil deer and elk tribe form also a very numerous collection. 

 Among these the celebrated elk of Ireland, dug out of a marl-pit near Drog- 



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