THE SUMATBA.N ELEPHANT. 



75 



ship in which most of H. Diard's specimens were sent to Europe, 

 received so much damage at sea near the Mauritius, that the goods 

 were mostly trans-sliipped, and sent in another vessel to Europe. It 

 thus happened that she did not arrive in the Netherlands until two 

 years after she had quitted Ceylon, and then with the news that the 

 cask containing one of the young Elephants had been obliged to be 

 thrown overboard, having become decomposed. A better fate 

 awaited the second cask, containing the other young individual, which 

 had been destined for Professor Owen of London ; and this and 

 the skin and skeleton of the old male Elephant, as also the skull of 

 the old female reached us well preserved. Tliese are now in the 

 National Museum at Leyden, and, as an accm-ate investigation has 

 convinced me, differ iu no respect from our examples of the Suma- 

 tran Elephant, thus belonging to this species, and differing in the 

 following particulars from ElepTias indicus. 



The Elephant of Sumatra and Ceylon, {ElepJias sumatranus) has 

 small ears like E. indicus, and approaches this species also in the 

 form of its skull, and the number of the caudal vertebras ; but the 

 laminfe of its teeth are wider, and in the number of its dorsal verte- 

 brae and pairs of ribs it differs from both the other known species. 

 As far as we know, there are seven cervdcal, three lumbar and four 

 Bacral vertebrae in all the species of Elephas alike. E. sumatranus 

 and E. indicus agree in the ninnbcr of caudal vertebrje, winch is 

 usually thirty- thi-ee, but in very yoimg examples sometimes only 

 thirty. In E. africanus, on the other hand, the taU never contains 

 more than twenty-six vertebrae. Einally, the numbers of dorsal 

 vertebrae and pairs of ribs are different in each of the three living 

 species of Elephant, being in E. africanus twenty-one, in E. suma- 

 tranus twenty, and in E. indicus nineteen. 



It is also remarkable, that the number of true ribs is alike in all 

 the species, that is, only five ; whilst in the three species, as above given, 

 the corresponding numbers of false ribs are fifteen, foui'teen and 

 thirteen. Hence it follows that the augmentation of these parts in 

 the different species, takes place in the direction of the hindermost 

 dorsal vertebra and pair of ribs. 



The laminae of the teeth afford another distinction, which, how- 

 ever, is less apparent to the eye than that taken from the number of 

 the vertebrae. These laminae, or bands, in E. sumatranus are -wider 

 (or if one may so say, broader in the dii-ection of the long axis of the 

 teeth) than in E. indicus. In making this comparison one must 

 remark that the distinction is less evident in yomiger individuals, and 

 that there are met with in all species of Elephants, within certain 

 definite limits, remarkable individual differences in respect of the 

 width of these laminas.* 



* The difFerences wluch we pointed out as existing between the skulls of the 

 two sorts of Asiatic Elephants, in Teniminck's Coup d'oeil, (II. p. 9, note), seem, 

 now that we have examined a greater number of examples, not to be constant. 



