24/50 It is certain that the West Indies possess some mammifers peculiar to themselves. A tooth of a mastodon has been brought from Bahama; "Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal" 1826 page 395.) (PLATE 33. Height, 7 feet 6 inches; girth round chest, 6 feet 6 inches; maximum breadth of pelvis, 3 feet 7 inches.) When America, and especially North America, possessed its elephants, mastodons, horse, and hollow-horned ruminants, it was much more closely related in its zoological characters to the temperate parts of Europe and Asia than it now is. As the remains of these genera are found on both sides of Behring's Straits and on the plains of Siberia, we are led to look to the north-western side of North America as the former point of communication between the Old and so-called New World. |