Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky

CHAPTER V.

OF OTHER ANIMALS THAT ONCE LIVED IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE.

THE ELEPHANT.

I have before mentioned to you the bones of Elephants, as occurring in the bone caverns; they were, however, not just like the Elephants now living in Africa and Asia. The tusks seem to have been larger, and the head not quite so broad and blunt; the teeth were also different.

There are not perhaps many counties in England in which some of these remains have not been found, and generally not far below the surface of the soil. About London, and at Woolwich in particular, a great many specimens of the fossil tusks have been collected; they are chiefly of about the consistency of chalk, but if you break them across and look at the end, you can see the grain of the ivory, just as you do on a billiard-ball, or at the end of a knife-handle.

Before anatomy was understood so well as it is at present, the bones of the Elephant, and those of several other large extinct animals, were confounded together under the name of Mammoth. There is a remarkable account of the discovery of what was at the time called a Mammoth, (but which was, doubtless, an Elephant,) imbedded in ice in Siberia, which I shall relate to you, as it is very well written and of undoubted veracity.

"In the year 1799, a Tungusian fisherman observed a strange shapeless mass projecting from an ice-bank, near the mouth of a river in the north of Siberia, the nature of which he did not understand, and which was so high in the bank as to be beyond his reach. He next year observed the same object, which was then rather more disengaged from among the ice; but was still unable to conceive what it was. Towards the end of the following summer, 1801, he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcass of an enormous animal, the entire flank of which, and one of its tusks, had become disengaged from the ice. In consequence of the ice beginning to melt earlier, and to a greater degree than usual, in 1803, the fifth year of this discovery, the enormous carcass became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-crag on a sand-bank, forming part of the coast of the Arctic Ocean. In the month of March of that year, the Tungusian carried away the two tusks, which he sold for fifty rubles, about fifteen pounds sterling.

"Two years afterwards this animal still remained on the sand-bank where it had fallen from the ice; but its body was then greatly mutilated. The peasants had taken away considerable quantities of its flesh to feed their dogs; and the wild animals, particularly the white bears, had also feasted on the carcass; yet the skeleton remained quite entire, except that one of the fore-legs was gone. The entire spine, the pelvis, one shoulder-blade, and three legs, were still held together by their ligaments, and by some remains of the skin; and the other shoulder-blade was found at a short distance. The head remained, covered by the dried skin, and the pupil of the eyes was still distinguishable. The brain also remained within the skull, but a good deal shrunk and dried up; and one of the ears was in excellent preservation, still retaining a tuft of strong bristly hair. The upper lip was a good deal eaten away, and the under lip was entirely gone, so that the teeth were distinctly seen. The animal had a long mane on its neck.

"The skin was extremely thick and heavy, and so much of it remained as required the exertions of ten men to carry away, which they did with considerable difficulty. More than thirty pounds' weight of the hair and bristles of this animal were gathered from the wet sand-bank, having been trampled into the mud by the white bears, while devouring the carcass. The hair was of three distinct kinds; one consisting of stiff black bristles, a foot or more in length; another of thinner bristles, or coarse flexible hair, of a reddish-brown colour; and the third of a coarse reddish-brown wool, which grew among the roots of the hair. These afford an undeniable proof that this animal had belonged to a race of elephants inhabiting a cold region, with which we are now unacquainted, and by no means fitted to live in the torrid zone. It is also evident that this enormous animal must have been frozen up by the ice at the moment of its death."

THE GIGANTIC ELK.

There are frequently found in the peat bogs of England and Ireland, the bones and horns of a large Elk, called the gigantic Elk, and sometimes the Irish Elk.

Plate IV. p. 38

MEGATHERIUM GIGANTIC ELK

Here is a picture of him; and you may judge how well he was entitled to his name, when I tell you that some pairs of his horns have been found, which measured nearly twelve feet across from tip to tip. He must have been considerably larger than the Wapiti Deer in the Zoological Gardens, and of quite a different form.

It is not known when these creatures became extinct; but it is probable that it may have been since Britain has been inhabited by man.

THE MEGATHERIUM.

The bones of this great beast were first found at Buenos Ayres in South America, and a skeleton nearly complete was sent home from thence by the Governor to the Royal Cabinet of Madrid, in 1789. They were found in loose soil, and must apparently have belonged to nearly the same age as the Fossil Elephant and Irish Elk.

The head must have been very much like that of the sloth, but it seems to have possessed the addition of a small trunk like the PalÆotherium I told you of just now. The structure of its legs (and in particular its very strong short thigh-bone, which is much stouter than that of any animal living,) shows that it must have moved very slowly.

Its teeth show that it lived on vegetables, and the great ungainly fore-feet, armed with tremendous claws, would lead one to suppose that it used to dig in the ground for roots, and tear down the branches of trees.

It appears to have been covered with a thick shell or coating, thicker than the hide of a rhinoceros, and rather resembling the covering of the armadillo. I have seen a piece of this wonderful coat of armour in the Museum at Paris, which was found along with the skeleton in South America.

If one might decide from its likeness to other animals in its various parts, it was a sulky beast, and, if it could have spoken, would only have said to its neighbours, "Let me alone—I want nothing of you, if you want nothing of me."

Its length was full 13 feet, and its height about 9 feet; so you may suppose armed, and defended as it was, there was not much chance of other animals being disposed to meddle with it, for it must have been big enough and strong enough to take good care of itself, though it could not run very fast.

THE BEAVER.

You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that Beavers once lived in England; but it is known from history, that they were found in Wales as late as the twelfth century. I have got the bones of some, that were given me by a countryman, who picked them out of a peat bog in Hampshire, without knowing what they were. They were buried close by some hazel nuts, and some moss that had not lost its colour, and was in no degree decayed; such is the great power possessed by certain minerals that exist in these peat bogs, to preserve things from decay, even during a period which could hardly be less than a thousand years.

It is related, that the foot of a lady, which seemed quite fresh, was found in peat, where it had lain in contact with some of these substances, with a sandal of a kind that must have been worn many hundreds of years ago. And though I will not assert that it is true, yet I will say, that it is very likely to be so, from what I have seen myself, in regard to nuts, and moss, and various weeds.

THE DODO.

When the Dutch in the 16th century, took possession of the Isle of France, now called Mauritius, which up to that time had not been inhabited by man, they found a large bird something of the Duck kind, of which they sent home specimens and representations. They called it the Dodo, but why, I cannot tell you.

The race has now become extinct, so that many naturalists have declared that it never existed, and that the account of it was naughtily invented, and sent home for the gratification and delusion of

"Those who greedily pursue

Things wonderful instead of true."

But there is not the least doubt of its being a fact, for in the Museum in London there is a painting said to have been taken from the living bird; there is also a leg and a plaster cast of the head placed near the painting, which naturalists have determined could not have belonged to any other animal known, from their peculiar construction; there is also another foot and the head from which the cast was taken, preserved in the Museum of the University of Oxford, being the remains of an entire specimen which was kept in the collection of curiosities made by Elias Ashmole, Esq. till it rotted. This is representation of these two valuable relics.

The account of the removal of the bones was entered in the records of the University, and the date is the 1st January, 1755.

More recently some of the bones have been found in the Mauritius, and have been sent to Paris, where I have heard they may be seen now.

It seems to have been the most unwieldy and inactive bird in existence, and to have held nearly the same kind of place among feathered animals as the sloth does among beasts. The body was very massive, and almost round, and seemed to be stuck upon two short thick legs like pillars. The tail was strangely out of its place, according to the usual form of birds; and two little caricatures of wings were hung upon its great blank sides. A thick pursy neck supported the head, which consisted of two enormous chaps that opened far behind the eyes. You will best understand the form of the bill by looking at the cut copied from the painting which I mentioned before, and you may there see how like a monk's cowl the feathers of his head looked.

Some of the Dutch who met with this bird in its own country called it the nauseous bird, and declared that its flesh was intolerably disagreeable to the taste; while others asserted that it was very good eating, and that about three Dodos would feast a hundred men. But whatever may have been the quality of the flesh, I do not believe what the latter said of its quantity, for the head and leg which I have seen, and which appear to have belonged to a full grown bird, are not very much larger than those of a swan.

However this is now a question which of course will never be certainly decided, as there are no more of them to be eaten. It appears that, like the beavers and wolves in England, the progress of man and cultivation deprived them of their sources of sustenance.

If we may judge of what his character was, from his appearance, he must have been a silly, voracious creature, with hardly any power of resistance or flight. However, like all the rest of God's works, he was no doubt adapted for the circumstances in which he was placed, and had enough means of enjoyment, to make it well worth his while to live as long as he could.

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