EXTINCTION OF THE MAMMOTH — NEUVILLE. 333 
the peculiar character of its pelage the animal was, on the contrary, 
at a disadvantage in this respect. 
Still other causes of inferiority can be assigned to the mammoth. 
One of them is the peculiar character of the tusks. Usually very large, 
out of proportion even, these tusks showed most frequently, it ap- 
pears, such an accentuated curve that in many individuals the tips 
were so directed (backward or sideways) that it is not easy to see of 
what use they could have been; rather than efficient weapons they 
appear to have been only incumbering accessories.^^ 
^ Thus brought to touch upon this special subject I think that I must make a digression 
■with regard to the use of the tusks of the proboscidians. 
It has been denied that these tusks are true weapons. It has even been suggested that 
for the elephants they are merel.v a kind of tool, which the animals employ for forcing a 
passage through the density of the forests, and that the tips of these ever-growing teeth 
are worn away by this work, the normal development of the tusks being thus limited after 
the manner of the incisors in the rodents. According to this hypothesis it would be con- 
ceived that the excessive development of the tusks of the mammoths might result from the 
circumstance that these animals lived in regions where the forests were not dense enough 
to provide the causes of regulating wear. This argument is ingenious ; however, I do not 
believe that it conforms with strict reality, and I ask permission of my readers to go 
into a few details here which by explaining the ethology of the living proboscidians will 
also help us to understand more clearly that of the forms which have disappeared. 
The elephants wear their tusks voluntarily by rubbing them against trees for this 
purpose in a manner comparable to that in which cats sharpen their claws. The tusks 
thus sharpened (they are often quite pointed, or terminated by a kind of chisel) are very 
effective weapons which the elephants often use. On account of their position they can 
only be used most effectively against animals of about the same size as those which bear 
these arms, hence they serve especially, in conjunction with the trunk, in the fights which 
elephants engage in against each other. Elephants, especially the males, are rather 
pugnaceous. We are thus led to regard the tusks as primarily sexual weapons, and, 
indeed, it is the males which are best armed. It appears to be unusual for elephants to 
use their tusks against creatures smaller than themselves. Of the latter, the principal, 
it might be said the only one with rare exceptions (carnivores attacking the young) 
which they have to attack is man. It is known only too well how they behave toward 
him — charging him, the trunk folded back between the tusks, until they are upon their 
hunter, now become their victim ; they then seize him with the trunk, suddenly stretched 
out, and treading on him at the same time they crush him and in some instances they 
even succeed in tearing him limb from limb ; it may also happen that, throwing him on 
the ground, they transfix him with their tusks. 
Elephants sometimes use their tusks for digging superficially ; I do not believe that they 
can use them as implements for forcing a passage through the forests. It is true that 
domesticated elephants use their tusks, when they are long enough, for certain tasks ; for 
example, for beginning to raise up a beam which is lying on the ground and which they 
then encircle with their trunk, but it is difDcult to see of what service they would be 
against trees. When an elephant wishes to tear away or break a shrub or a tree, if his 
trunk is not suflBcient he applies his .forehead or shoulder (especially the forehead) to the 
obstacle, and leaning against it with all his weight he acts upon it more efficaceously than 
by striking with the rather fragile tusks and running the risk of breaking them. It is 
well to recall also that, although inclined to wander, elephants normally, at least, follow 
regular paths which are not only kept clear of brush by their constant passage but which 
pre.sent in the dry season a remarkably leveled off appearance, stamped as they are by the 
broad feet of these gigantic animals. (I have in mind especially the African elephants.) 
Finally it sometimes happens that elephant tusks show anomalies of curvature some of 
which .suggest those that were shown by the mammoth ; I have figured one of this kind. 
(M. de Rothschild et II. Neuville, Sur uue dent d'origine 4nlgmatique. Archives de 
Zo61ogie expCrimentale, vol. 7, 1907, p. 271-333. PI. XXII-XXIV.) In the mammoths 
anomaly tended to become the rule, and this perhaps because of the absence or rarity of 
trees large enough to serve for the wearing down process which I have described above. 
But from this last argument we can not deduce any proof as to the character of the 
vegetation ; It is asserted that the Siberian mammoths lived In the midst of trees of a 
fairly large size, birches for instance, and a few traces may sometimes be seen on their 
