266 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



sonally. That eminent traveller has not only most liberally placed 

 his sketches of the nine-tusked elephant in our hands, with per- 

 mission to use them, but has also had the kindness to make draw- 

 ings from them for the accompanying woodcuts, the two first being 

 taken from the original sketches, and the third, with the mouth 

 open, an imaginary sketch made at our request to shew our idea of 

 the real position of the teeth, and which he has been willing to 

 execute notwithstanding that it is opposed to his own convictions 

 on the subject. 



The elephant in question was, as above mentioned, shot 

 by a Bechuana named Mahura or Rapiet (that is, the father 

 of Peter, it being it seems the custom in that country to call the 

 parent after his first-born son), and both Chapman and Baines 

 consider his testimony on this point honest and reliable — a 

 conclusion in which the anatomists who have seen the sketches 

 concur, from the intrinsic evidence of the apparent position 

 assigned to the abnomial teeth. Although Baines and Chap- 

 man did not see Rapiet until some six years after he had shot 

 the elephant, the subject had surprised himself so much, and at- 

 tracted so much attention in the country, that it remained fresh in 

 his recollection. Mr Baines made a drawing of the head and tusks in 

 his presence, and took great care to place them according to his ac- 

 count of their actual position. Rapiet gave him no reason to 

 imagine that any of them grew anywhere but in the upper jaw, and 

 Mr Baines tells us that he is quite sure that if either of them had 

 grown from the lower jaw he would have told him of it. Mr 

 Baines consequently supposes that they all grew as usual from the 

 socket of the tusk above the upper jaw. We think, for reasons to 

 be presently mentioned, that he must be wrong in this, as he 

 certainly is in an analogy which he suggests, and which we only 

 note, that it may not be said that we have kept back anything re- 

 lating to such an interesting case. He says : — 



"I do not profess to account for it, but if I mention that the Kak tribes, by 

 splitting the horns of the young calves, cause them to grow into any number of 

 branches, as the animal attains maturity, it may be suggestive to those who wish 

 to investigate such cases. 1 have seen many instances of deformed, distorted, 

 or broken tusks, the fractured parts of which were overgrown with nodules or 

 excrescences of ivory." 



Mr Baines has also shewn us a sketch taken from a dead elephant, 

 in which one of the tusks is turned up in the ordinary way, and the 

 other turned down like the two additional large ones in this 



