IN THE LOWEli ANIMALS, ETC. 315 



roxysms of madness, whicli at length compelled 

 its owner to obtain the aid of a file of riflemen to 

 put it to death. The skeleton of the unfortunate 

 animal is set up in the Hunterian Museum, and 

 the skull bears marks of the many ineffectual 

 attempts to penetrate the brain, owing to the 

 peculiar construction of the skull, to which I shall 

 shortly refer. In an adjoining glass case is seen 

 the hollow basal extremity of the left tusk, which 

 shows by the irregular deposit of osteodentine in 

 the pulp cavity, and the absorption of part of its 

 walls, that the pulp had been the seat of violent 

 and repeated attacks of inflammation ; a condition 

 which must have aggravated, if it did not originate, 

 the uncontrollable state of the animal. 



The succession of the molar teeth differs greatly 

 from that of the other mammals. We observed 

 that the temporary molars are usually replaced by 

 permanent teeth in the vertical direction, called 

 false molars, corresponding to the human bicus- 

 pids. No such arrangement is found in the 

 elephant; but in the whole of the molar teeth, 

 including those earliest developed, the succession 

 takes places from behind forwards, after the 

 manner of the true molars in the other animals, 

 or the permanent molars in the human subject. 



The development of these teeth has been so 

 admirably explained by Professor Owen that I 

 shall do well to quote his clear and comprehensive 

 description : — *' The whole series of molar teeth 



