834 AN^TtTAL HEPORT SMiTHSONlAK INSTITUTION, iQ'm 
Others are characters which I believe to be imperfectly Imown up 
to the present and which I am going to mention briefly. If the 
mammoth did not show the keratosic reactions which give to the 
epidermis of the living elephants its truly characteristic warty struc- 
ture, the skin seems none the less to have undergone some reactions 
of the same nature, which were, it is true, strictly localized, and 
which instead of constituting an adaptation — that is, instead of being 
of utility — were to the highest degree inadaptive. Tilesius had 
already observed in the mammoth of the St. Petersburg Museum that 
the soles of the hind feet appeared " as though dilated and crushed 
by the weight of the body so that they came up over the edges of 
the feet and covered them," and Cuvier, from whom I am borrowing 
this citation,^- alludes pertinently to the fact that there was " some- 
thing of the same kind in the elephant of the menagerie at Versailles, 
described by Perrault." As a general rule the sole of the foot in the 
elephant tends to be turned up behind so as to form a slight rim on 
the side opposite to that which bears the nails. This character may 
become abnormally prominent in individuals living in menageries. 
According to Perrault's description and tigure,^^ it appears that such 
was the case v/ith the one vv'hich he described, and it is interesting 
to see that "something of the same kind" may be shown by a 
mammoth. 
I have observed at the periphery of the soles of the hind feet o{' 
the mammoth presented to the museum by Count Stenbok-Fermor 
not merely simple rims but horny excrescences forming as it were 
supernumerary nails and resembling nails so perfectly that it might 
be relatively difficult to distinguish one from the other. I have 
also been able to make on an Asiatic elephant that had lived in the 
menagerie of the Paris Museum an observation which corroborates 
that of Perrault, and which allows me to assert without hesitation 
that these anomalies of menagerie elephants are of the same char- 
acter as those which were shown by the mammoths.^* 
tusks of the wearing down that I have spoken af above, produced by voluntary rubbing 
against trees. 
In any event the tusks of the mammoths could not have been, I repeat, anything but 
accessories that were more incumbering than useful. If this is not an instance of real 
degeneration the result, nevertheless, must have been injurious rather than favorable to 
the preservation of the species. 
^ Ossements fossiles, ed. 4, vol. 2, p. 232. Paris, 1834. 
^3 Description auatomique d"un elfiphant male, M<5moires de I'AcadSmie royale des 
Sciences, vol. 3, pt. 3, 1734, pp. 91-156 (see pp. 103-104 and pi. 19). 
'* Here again I think I must make a digression concerning the terms of comparison fur- 
nished by the recent elephants. 
In these animals the number of toenails is subject to frequent individual variations. 
It is classic, but incorrect, to say that the African elephant has four nails on the front 
feet and three on the hind feet, while the Asiatic elephant has five of them in front and 
four behind. These numbers are not constant. Especially in the Asiatic elephant, belter 
known than its African congener, there may be four nails on each foot, or live, or four 
in front and five behind, contrary to the generally recognized type. Aristotle, noticing the 
relation of these nails to the digits, suggested that they were not true nails; this view 
