THE ELEPHANT SHREW 39 



Triguel on his guard; but since the animal cried out, 

 winced, and bled when the trumpet was pricked, he 

 credulously purchased the rat. The deception would 

 probably have gone undetected, for M. Triguel was 

 delighted with his new acquisition ; but having pur- 

 chased of the Zouave a female rat a trompe (home 

 made as before), her young ones even in six months 

 remained trumpedess. A friend of M. Triguel's, an 

 officer who had long served in Africa, explained to 

 him the grafting process ; adding " les rats n'ont pas 

 de trompe ; vous avez ete trompe ! " Hence the 

 lawsuit ; but by a quibble the Zouave and not 

 M, Triofuel obtained the verdict. This method of 

 grafting consists of tying down two live rats and 

 inserting the tail of the foremost into a slit cut in the 

 nose of the other; after forty-eight hours, union being 

 complete, the tail of the front rat is cut off to the 

 desired length. The presence of vertebrae and the 

 topsy-turvy appearance of the false proboscis is 

 thus explained. English readers will find a similar 

 specimen preserved in the Royal College of Surgeons' 

 Museum ; namely, the head of a cock into whose 

 comb John Hunter had successfully grafted a spur 

 durino- the bird's life time. 



The true elephant shrew has been taken alive, 

 but like so many of the insectivora soon dies in 

 captivity; the same is recorded of the Central African 

 shrews Petrodromus and Rhynchocyon. M. Lataste 

 has related that three young ones which he captured 



