312 STRUCTUEE AND ADAPTATION OF TEETH 



necessarily require alveoli of great size and deptli. 

 The upper jaw is tlius rendered so high, and the 

 nasal bones are so much shortened, that in the 

 skeleton the nostrils are situated in the upper 

 part of the face, although in the living animal 

 they are prolonged into that remarkable organ 

 the proboscis. The tusks are preceded by a 

 deciduous pair not exceeding two inches in length, 

 the bases of which are absorbed toward the end 

 of the second year, and the teeth fall out. 



The permanent tusks appear a few weeks after- 

 wards ; the immense hollow base being occupied 

 by a persistent formative pulp, supplied abun- 

 dantly with blood-vessels ; and as no antagonists 

 are provided to wear them down, as in the case of 

 the rodents, they attain an immense magnitude 

 and weight. Instances are recorded in which a 

 pair of tusks has weighed more than three hundred 

 pounds ; and the annual importation of ivory into 

 Great Britain alone may be estimated at about one 

 million pounds ; which, taking the average weight 

 of a tusk at sixty pounds, would require the 

 slaughter of 8,333 elephants. Of the two existing 

 species of elephant, the African is provided with 

 the most massive tusks, which are of nearly the 

 same size in both sexes ; while in the Indian 

 species the tusks of the female do not attain equal 

 magnitude to those of the male ; and in the Ceylon 

 variety not one elephant in a hundred is found 

 with tusks, the few that possess them being exclu- 



