72 OKiaiNAL AETICLES. 



YII._The Sumatean Elephant. By Prof. H. Sclilegel. 



[The following translation from tlie Dutch, of a pa])er read by Prof. 

 H. Sehlegcl, before the Eoyal Academy of Sciences of Holland,* gives 

 some fui-ther details re.^ipecting the Sumatran Elephant. This species 

 was distinguished by Temminck some years ago, from the Elephant 

 of Continental India, and proposed to be called U I epJi as sumatranus,-\ 

 but is hardly known to Naturalists of this country, except from the 

 short notice of it communicated by the late Prince Charles Bona- 

 parte, to one of the meetings of the Zoological Society of London, 

 in 18i9.:— P. L. S.] 



It is well known that Sumatra is the only island of the Indian 

 Archipelago, where Elephants are found "udld. Magelhaens has in- 

 formed us, that the Elephants which he saw in Borneo, were intro- 

 duced there, and that the animal is as little indigenous to that 

 island as to Java. 



So long as all living Elephants were treated of as belonging to 

 one species, no one thought of comparing them together ; and even 

 after Cuvier had pointed out that the Elephant of Africa was ^-ery 

 different from that of India, yet the opinion remained that all the 

 Asiatic Elephants constituted but one sj^ecies, though, as we shall 

 presently show, the examples on which Cuvier established his Weplias 

 africamis, differed specifically inter se. This idea, indeed, had gone 

 so far that no one took the trouble to examine further the Elephants, 

 which were brought alive from time to time from Sumatra to Java, 

 and there kept in a half-domestic state, but people were content to 

 refer them to the so-called Indian or Asiatic Elephant, to which also, 

 according to Cuvier, the Ceylonese Elephant belongs. 



As, however, nothing is proved by a negative, and it is of great 

 importance in a large Museum to obtain illustrations of the Eaunas 

 of different countries, I never ceased to urge my predecessor, Heer 

 Temminck, to obtain specimens of the Sumatran Elephant for the 

 Eoyal Museum. In August, 1845, I was fortunate enough to be 

 gratified in this respect, several examples of Elephants from the dis- 

 trict of Palembang in Sumatra, having been liberally forwarded to 

 the Museum, by his Excellency the Baron J. C. Baud— at that time 

 Governor of the Dutch possessions in India. As I was unpacking 

 lliom it appeared to me that they differed in several respects from 

 the Elephant of Bengal. I occupied myself, therefore, with draAv- 

 ing up tlie characters of these two animals, compared with those of 

 the African Elephant, and gave the results to Heer Temminck ; 



* Sec Vcrslagen en ^Mcdedeclingen der Koninlilijke Academie van Weteu- 

 scliappcn, Afd. Niituiirkundc, 1861, p. 101. 



•[• See his " Coup d'ocil sur les possesions Nederlandaises dans les Indes Ori- 

 cntales." Vol. II. p 91. 



% See I'loc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 144. 



