side of Beresovsk in large
grottos in the Ural mountains (_loc. cit._ p. 382).

KLAPROTH received a similar account of the mammoth's way of life
from the Chinese in the Russo-Chinese frontier and trading town
Kyachta. For mammoth ivory was considered to be tusks of the giant
rat _tien-shu_, which is only found in the cold regions along the
coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the light, and lives in dark holes in
the interior of the earth. Its flesh is said to be cooling and
wholesome. Some Chinese literati considered that the discovery of
these immense earth rats might even explain the origin of
earthquakes.[222]

It was not until the latter half of the last century that a European
scientific man had an opportunity of examining a similar _find_. In
the year 1771 a complete rhinoceros, with flesh and hide, was
uncovered by a landslip on the river Wilui in 64 deg. N.L. Its
head and feet are still preserved at St. Petersburg. All the other
parts were allowed to be destroyed for want of means of transport
and preservation.[223] What was taken away showed that this primeval
rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros antiquitatis_ Blumenbach) had been covered
with hair and differed from all now living species of the same
family, though strongly resembling them in shape and size. Already,
long before the horns of the fossil rhinoceros had attracted the
attention of the natives, pieces of these horns were used for the
same purposes for which the Chukches employ strips of whalebone,
viz. to increase the elasticity of their bows. They were considered
at the same time to exert a like beneficial influence on the arrow,
tending to make it hit the mark, as, according to the hunter's
superstition among ourselves in former days, some cat's claws and
owl's eyes placed in the bullet mould had on the ball. The natives
believed that the crania and horns of the rhinoceros found along
with the remains of the mammoth belonged to gigantic birds,
regarding which there were told in the tents of the Yakut, the
Ostyak and the Tunguse many tales resembling that of the bird Roc in
the _Thousand and One Nights_. Ermann and Middendorff even suppose
that such _finds_ two thousand years ago gave occasion to Herodotus'
account of the Arimaspi and the gold-guarding dragons (_Herodotus_,
Book IV. chap. 27). Certain it is that during the middle ages such
"grip-claws" were preserved, as of great value, in the treasuries
and art collections of that time, and that they gave rise t