Memoir upon tiving and fossil Elephanls. €3 



There is something more accurate, and equally true, in what 

 Is mentioned by a scholiast upon Pindar, cited by Gessner, 

 Quadr., p. 378, that the males only of the Indian elephants 

 had tusks, but that both sex«s had them among the elephants 

 of Libya and Ethiopia. As to the distinction established 

 by Philostratus* between the elephanls of mountains, plains, 

 and marshes, and as to the differences of their nature and of 

 their ivory, it is also probable that if they were real they 

 constituted simple varieties only. 



The merit of the first legitimate specific distinction of 

 elephants from the internal structure of their teeth is there- 

 fore entirely owing to P. Camper: although he has written 

 nothing on the subject, the plates in which he has repre- 

 sented them, and the testimony of bis son and of M. Faujas, 

 secure this merit to him. 



M. Blumcnbach has also made the observation : he has 

 characterized the two species according to this sole diffe- 

 rence in h'\s Manuel,^ sixth edition, p. 121, and has exhi- 

 bited drawings of the two kinds of teeth in his Ablildungeny 

 pi. 19- 



This difference consists in the form of the laminae and in 

 their nmiibcr ; it is observable even il^ the germ. 



The germs of the elephant from India are laminEe, each 

 of which is formed of two surfaces nearly parallel, and sim- 

 ply furrowed in their length. (See Elephants, Plate III. 

 fig. 5.) In' the elephant from Africa, one of the surfaces, 

 and often both, produces in its middle and upon nearly all 

 its lent'th an angular jet ; its furrows are also much less nu- 

 merous. (Fig*fi.) 



It results from this structure of the germs, that the section 

 of the laminaj, when the to§th has been worn, presents in 

 the elephant of India narrow transverse stripes of an equal 

 breadth, and the edges of which, formed by the enamel, are' 

 V£ry much festooned ; and in the elephant of Africa lozenges 

 or stripes broader in the middle than at the two ends, and: 

 ihe edges of which are rarely frittered into very perceptible 

 festoons. 



* Vita Apoll. Tyan. lib. ii. cap. 13. 



To 



