ELEPHAS. 379 
stump, the size of one’s finger. This was brought to my notice by a 
correspondent of Zhe Asian, “Smooth-bore,” and I have lately had the 
pleasure of meeting Mr. Tegetmeier, and speaking to him on the sub- 
ject. There is apparently no limit to the growth of tusks, so that 
under favourable circumstances they might attain enormous dimensions, 
owing to the age of the animal, and absence of the attrition which keeps 
the incisors of rodents down. As in the case of rodents, malformations 
of whose incisors I have alluded to some time back, the tusks of 
elephants assume various freaks. I have heard of their overlapping 
and crossing the trunk in a manner to impede the free use of that 
organ. The tusks of fossil elephants are in many cases gigantic. 
There is a head in the Indian Museum, of which the tusks outside the 
socket measure 93 feet, and are of very curious formation. ‘The two run 
parallel some distance, and then diverge, which would lead one to 
suppose that the animal inhabited open country, for such a formation 
would be extremely uncomfortable in thick forest. That tusks of such | 
magnitude are not found nowadays is probably due to the fact that the 
elephant has more enemies, the most formidable of all being man, which 
prevent his reaching the great age of those of the fossil periods. It may 
be said, by those who disbelieve in the extermination of this animal, 
that, as elephants have provided ivory for several thousand years, they 
will go on doing so ; but I would remind them that in olden days ivory 
was an article in limited demand, being used chiefly by kings and great 
nobles ; it is only of late years that it has increased more than a hundred- 
fold. Our forefathers used buck-horn handled knives, and they were 
without the thousand-and-one little articles of luxury which are now 
made of ivory ; even the requirements of the ancient world drove the 
elephant away from the coasts, where Solomon, and later still the 
Romans, got their ivory ; and now the girdle round the remaining herds 
in Central Africa is being narrowed day by day. Mr. Sanderson is of 
opinion that it is not decreasing in India under the present restrictions, 
but there is no doubt the reckless slaughter of them in Ceylon has 
greatly diminished their numbers. Sir Emerson Tennent states that the 
Government reward was claimed for 3,500 destroyed in part of the 
northern provinces alone in three years prior to 1848, and between 1851 
and 1856, 2000 were killed in the southern provinces. 
GENUS ELEPHAS—THE ELEPHANT. 
In the writings of older naturalists this animal, so singular in its con- 
struction, will be found grouped with the horse, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, 
tapir, coney, and pig, under the name of pachydermata, the seventh 
order of Cuvier, but these are now more appropriately divided, as I have 
said before, into three different orders—Proboscidea, the elephants ; 
