Chapter III: Iii.--The Earless Seal Family (phocidæ) (5)

“‘A Mammoth! a Mammoth!’ broke out the Tschermomori, and I shouted ‘Here quickly! chains and ropes!’ I will pass over our preparations for securing the giant animal, whose body the water was trying to bear from us. As the animal again sank we waited for an opportunity to throw the ropes over his neck. This was only accomplished after many efforts. For the rest we had no cause for anxiety, for after examining the ground I satisfied myself that the hind legs of the Mammoth still stuck in the earth, and that the water would work for us to unloosen them. We therefore fastened a rope round his neck, threw a chain round his tusks, that were eight feet long, drove a stake into the ground about twenty feet from the shore, and made chain and rope fast to it. The day went by quicker than I thought for, but still the time seemed long before the animal was secured, as it was only after the lapse of twenty-four hours that the waters had loosened it. But the position of the animal was interesting to me; it was standing in the earth, and not lying on its side or back as a dead animal naturally would, indicating by this the manner of its destruction. The soft peat or marsh land on which he stepped thousands of years ago gave way by the weight of the giant, and he sank as he stood on it feet foremost, incapable of saving himself, and a severe frost came and turned him into ice, as well as the moor which had buried him; the latter, however, grew and flourished, every summer renewing itself; possibly the neighbouring stream had heaped plants and sand over the dead body. God only knows what causes had worked for its preservation; now, however, the stream had once more brought it to the light of day, and I, an ephemera of life compared with this primeval giant, was sent here by heaven just at the right time to welcome him. You can imagine how I jumped for joy.... Picture to yourself an Elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height, and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick and curving outwards at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one foot and a half in thickness, and a tail naked up to the end, which was covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well grown; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay fearfully turned up over the head; about the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long outer hair was deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild, and was so penetrated with pitch, that it resembled the rind of an old oak-tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm, and thick, and of a yellow brown colour. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully wild and strange. It had not the shape of our present Elephants. As compared with our Indian Elephants, its head was rough, the brain case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our Elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this Mammoth it is as an Arabian steed to a coarse ugly Dray-horse. I could not divest myself of a feeling of fear as I approached the head; the broken, widely-opened eyes gave the animal an appearance of life, as though it might move in a moment and destroy us with a roar.... The bad smell of the body warned us that it was time to save of it what we could, and the swelling flood, too, bade us hasten. First of all we cut off the tusks, and sent them to the cutter. Then the people tried to hew the head off, but, notwithstanding their good will, this was slow work. As the belly of the animal was cut open the intestines rolled out, and then the smell was so dreadful that I could not overcome my nauseousness, and was obliged to turn away. But I had the stomach separated and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine; a quantity of young fir cones also, in a chewed state, were mixed with the mass.”

This most graphic account affords a key for the solution of several problems hitherto unknown. It is clear that the animal must have been buried where it died, and that it was not transported from any place farther up stream to the south, where the climate is comparatively temperate. The presence of fir-spikes in the stomach proves that it fed on the vegetation which is now found at the northern part of the woods, as they join the low, desolate, treeless, moss-covered tundra, in which the body lay buried, a fact that would necessarily involve the conclusion that the climate of Siberia, in those ancient days, differed but slightly from that of the present time. Before this discovery, the food of the Mammoth had not been known by direct evidence. The circumstances under which it was brought to light enable us to see how animal remains could be entombed in the frozen soil without undergoing decomposition, which Baron Cuvier and Dr. Buckland agreed in accounting for by a sudden cataclysm, and Sir Charles Lyell by the hypothesis of their having been swept down by floods from the temperate into the arctic zone. In this particular case, the marsh must have been sufficiently soft to admit of the Mammoth sinking in; while shortly after death the temperature must have been lowered, so as to arrest decomposition, up to the very day on which the body arose under the eyes of M. Benkendorf, in the exceptionally warm year of 1846, when the tundra was thawed to a most unusual depth, and converted into a morass permeable by water. Had any Mammoths been alive in that year, and had they strayed beyond the limits of the woods into the tundra, some would in all human probability have been engulfed; and, when once covered up, the normal cold of winter would suffice to prevent the thaw of the carcases, except in extraordinary seasons, such as that in which this one was discovered. Probably many such warm summers intervened since its death, but as it was preserved from the air, they would not accelerate putrefaction to any great degree. In this way the problem of its entombment and preservation may be solved by an appeal to the present climatal conditions of Siberia. The difficulty of accounting for such vast quantities of remains in the Arctic Ocean, especially in the Läckhow Islands off the mouth of the Lena, is also explained by this discovery, as well as the association of marine shells with the remains of the Mammoth. The body was swept away by the swollen flood of the Indighirka, along with many other waifs and strays, and no doubt by this time is adding to the vast accumulation in the Arctic Sea. It was seen by a mere chance, and must be viewed as an example of the method by which animal remains are swept seaward. In all probability, the frozen morass in which it was discovered is as full of Mammoths as the peat-bogs of Ireland are of Irish Elk, and have been the main source from which the Arctic rivers have obtained their supply of animal remains. The remains of the Mammoth are met with in incredible numbers in the river deposits of Middle and Northern Europe, as well as in those of North America, showing that in ancient times the animal ranged over a tract of land extending from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Sea, and from Behring Strait to the Gulf of Mexico. It is also met with in the caves in Middle Europe, having been dragged into them by the Hyænas, or having fallen a prey to the ancient hunter. We owe, indeed, to the skill of the latter an incisive sketch of the animal as he appeared to the inhabitants of Auvergne, in the remote geological period known as Pleistocene; the long, hairy mane, and spirally-curved tusks, are faithfully depicted by the artist, and, were it not for the strange chance which has preserved to us the whole animal in the frozen ice-cliffs of Siberia, would have seemed to us merely imaginative details. In another example, also from the caves of Auvergne, the Mammoth is represented with his mouth open, and his trunk lifted up in the attitude of charging.

Remains of other extinct species of Elephants are found; one, which is of exceedingly small stature, standing not much higher than from two and a half to three feet, has been discovered in the bone-caves of Malta. The genus MASTODON, which in many respects resembles the true Elephants, differs from them in the formation of the teeth, the grinders being much simpler, more tubercular, and with crowns free from cement. In most cases, also, there were two small tusks in the lower jaw, as well as those in the upper. In Europe they appear in the Miocene and Pliocene strata, and in America they survived into the Pleistocene. The most extraordinary-looking, perhaps, of the fossil Proboscidea, and that furthest removed from the living Elephants, is the DINOTHERIUM, of the Miocene age. It possessed no tusks in the upper jaw, but its lower jaw was armed with two long curved tusks, projecting downwards. It probably possessed the habits of the Elephant, and these tusks may have been used for uprooting trees, or hooking down boughs, so as to obtain the leaves and shoots for food.

W. BOYD DAWKINS.
H. W. OAKLEY.

ORDER HYRACOIDEA (CONIES).

What is the Coney?--Mention in the Bible--General Appearance--Real
Place--Range--Varieties--Coney of the Bible--Cape Coney--Ashkoko of
Abyssinia--Mr. Winwood Reade’s Account of the Habits of the Cape
Coney--Skull, Dentition, Ribs, &c.

The order of animals known to naturalists as Hyracoidea (derived from the Greek ὕραξ, a Shrew, and εἶδος, form) contains but one genus, called Hyrax. Belonging to this genus are but two or three species of small animals, which, however, are of considerable interest, both from their peculiar organisation, and from their mention four times in the Bible under the name of Shaphan, improperly translated Coney, which has given rise to considerable controversy, as to what animal was meant. Some persons considered, and naturally enough, that Coney meant nothing more or less than the Rabbit; but now no doubt exists, as has been shown from its characters and habits, that the animal referred to is the Daman, or _Hyrax syriacus_.

The following are the passages literally rendered, in which the Hyrax is mentioned in the Bible: “Likewise the Coney, because he cheweth the cud, and divideth not the hoof; he shall be unclean unto you” (Leviticus xi. 5). “But these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, and of them that divide and cleave the hoof only; the Camel, nor the Hare, nor the Coney; for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they shall be unclean unto you” (Deuteronomy xiv. 7). “The high mountains are for the Goats; the rocks are a refuge for the Conies” (Psalms civ. 18). “The Conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks” (Proverbs xxx. 26). With regard to the first passage, although the Hyrax certainly does not chew the cud, the peculiar way in which it moves its jaws, as it sits perched in a ruminating manner, so to speak, on some ledge of rock, would naturally suggest to the ignorant that it really was chewing the cud. In the third quotation, we read “the rocks are a refuge for the Conies.” This exactly suits the Hyrax, which is always found inhabiting rocky situations. The last extract also agrees with the known habits of the Hyrax. Here it is alluded to as being one of the four animals on earth who are small, but very wise. These four are the Ant, the Locust, the Spider, and the Coney. All travellers who have noticed the Hyrax are agreed that it is a most wary and crafty animal, and that the utmost caution is required even to obtain a view of it; and to kill one requires a most skilful and practised sportsman.

The Hyrax is a little animal clothed with a brownish fur, of about the size of an ordinary Rabbit, to which, indeed, it has some resemblance. It is allied to the Rhinoceros, the Tapir, and Rodents; but the whole form of the skeleton approaches more nearly to that of the two former than it does to any known species of the latter. Linnæus, however, and other authors, classed it with the Rodents; but Cuvier, seeing that it more nearly approached the characters of the old group of animals called Pachydermata (thick-skinned animals), placed it with them. Now, however, it is assigned by Prof. Huxley to an order of its own named Hyracoidea; but it still is a doubtful question as to what should be done with it.

Of the several animals forming the genus, one, the _Hyrax syriacus_, the Coney of the Bible, is found from the coast of the Red Sea northwards through Syria, by Lebanon, and southwards into Arabia and Ethiopia. Another species, _Hyrax capensis_, the Cape Coney, is found at the Cape and east coast of Africa, extending from Abyssinia down the east coast southwards. Two other species are described from West Africa; but both probably belong to one genus.

Bruce, in his “Travels in Abyssinia,” tells us that the Ashkoko, which is understood to be the same as the Daman (_Hyrax syriacus_), is found in Ethiopia, in the caverns of the rocks, and under the large stones in the Mountain of the Sun, behind the queen’s palace at Koscam. He also informs us that it is of common occurrence in many other rocky places of Abyssinia, and he says that it does not make holes like Rabbits or Rats, because its toes are not adapted for so doing, and that it is a very timid and gentle creature, stealing along a few paces, and then stopping, as if to see that the coast is clear.

Bruce also states that apparently the same species inhabits Mount Libanus, and the rocks of Cape Mohammed, which divides the Elanitic from the Heroopolitic Gulf, or Gulf of Suez from that of Akabah, and that the only difference he saw was in the greater size and fatness of those of the Mountain of the Sun.

“The _Hyrax capensis_,” writes Mr. Reade, “is found living at the Cape of Good Hope, inhabiting the hollows and caves of the rocks, both on the hill-sides and on the sea shore, a little above high-water mark. It seems to live in families, and in its wild state is remarkably shy. In the cold weather it is fond of coming out of its hole and warming itself in the sun on the side of a rock, and in summer it enjoys the breeze on the top of the hills, but in both instances, as well as when it feeds, a sentinel is always placed on the look-out, generally an old male, which gives notice of any approach of danger by a long shrill cry.

“Its principal food is the young tops of shrubs, especially those which are aromatic, but it also eats herbs, grass, and the tops of flowers. To eat it tastes much like a Rabbit. It is recorded that one gentleman caught two young ones which he kept for some time. They became very tame, and as they were allowed the run of the house would follow him about, jump on to his lap, or creep into his bed for the sake of the warmth. One brought home by Mr. Hennah would also run inquisitively about the cabins, climbing up and examining every person and thing, but startled by any noise, it would run away and hide itself. When shut up for long, it became savage and snarled and tried to bite at everything that came in its way. This animal, both when wild as well as when tame, is very cleanly in its habits. From its faintly crying in its sleep it may be supposed that it dreams. It has also been heard to chew its food at night. When tame it will eat a variety of things, the leaves of plants, bruised Indian corn, raw potatoes, bread, and onions, and will greedily lick up salt. The one brought home by Mr. Hennah was very sensible of the cold, for when a candle was placed near its cage, it would come as close as possible to the bars, and sit still to receive as much warmth as it could. I am inclined to think that the female does not produce more than two young ones at a time, from having observed in several instances but two following the old ones. Its name at the Cape is the Dasse, which is, I believe, the Dutch for a Badger.”

In structure, the skull of the Hyrax approaches more nearly to that of the Ungulata (animals with hoofs), especially to that of the Rhinoceros, than it does to that of any of the Rodents. The nose of the Hyrax, however, not having any horn to support, the nasal bones are not thickened, as they are in the Rhinoceros. There is a marked distinction between the maxillary, or upper jaw-bones of the Hyrax and those of the Rodents, the extent of the former being much smaller. In the former, also, there are two parietal bones, as compared with one in the latter. The joint, or condyle of the lower jaw, differs from that of the Rodents, in which it is compressed longitudinally, while in the Hyrax it is compressed transversely, as in the Ungulata, being also applied to a plane surface of the temporal bone, whereby a motion more or less horizontal is permitted. The Hyrax has no canine teeth. The upper incisors resemble those of Rabbits and Hares in number, which are four in the adult, and those of Rodents generally in the possession of persistent pulps. In shape they approach more to the form of the canines of the Hippopotamus by terminating in a point. The number of lower incisors is also four, and they are procumbent somewhat like those of the Hog. The grinders, both in number and form, resemble those of the Rhinoceros.

With regard to the number of ribs, the Hyrax approaches nearer to the Ungulata and Proboscidea than it does to the Rodents. It departs from the former in the number of the vertebræ and form of the pelvis; but again approaches them in the form of the femora (thigh bones), and also in the formation of the feet; the toes are four in front and three behind, as in the Tapir, and they are supplied with hoofs, or rounded hoof-like nails. They are without collar-bones (clavicles). The body of the Hyrax is covered with thick hair, which is here and there beset with bristles, and the tail is represented by a mere tubercle. No remains of the Hyrax have yet been found in a fossil state.

W. BOYD DAWKINS.
H. W. OAKLEY.

ORDER UNGULATA (HOOFED QUADRUPEDS).