3C'2 Memoir upon liv'vig and fossil Elephants. 



would replace the one behind which he found these lamina. 

 He was therefore reduced to the necessity of searching for 

 various imaginary uses of them. 



Disputes were maintained as la the number of the teeth of 

 the elephant : the Royal Society of London perceived, in 1715, 

 that it varies from one to two on each side, and that the 

 place of the division varies also ; that is, the first tooth is 

 longer or shorter, in proportion to the second, according to 

 the individuals*. Pallas was the first who taught the mode 

 of their succession, which explains all these irregularities, by 

 showing that at first they have only a single tooth on each 

 side ; that the second, in developing itself, pushes the for- 

 mer in such a n^anncr chat during a certain time there are 

 two of them ; afterwards the fall of the first leaves one 



only t- 



I have announced that this succession, and consequently 

 this alternate change in number, was repeated more than 

 once, because I had also found separate germs in an ele- 

 phant which had already two teeth in their places |. This 

 last point had been already established, but with respect to 

 the upper jaws only, by Daubenton § ; in short, this great 

 naturalist had also presented to a certain degree the neces- 

 sity of ihis succession fron\ back to front, which Pallas has 

 more clearly developed. 



Mr. Corse 11 has informed us that this succession is re- 

 peated so often as eight limes in the Indian elephant; that 

 there are consequently thirty-tv./;) teeth which successively 

 occupy the difTerent parts of its jaws. 



The first appear eight or ten days after birtli ; they are well 

 formed in six weeks, and complele'y cut in three months. 

 Tlie second are v/ell cut at two years of age. The third ap- 

 pear at this period, and make the second fall out at six 

 years ; these arc, in their turns, pushed out by the fourth at 

 nine years. The subsequent periods are not so well known. 



For my part, I never found more or less than three teeth 

 at once in the two elephants I dissected, and in five dry skc- 



* Phil. Trans, vol. xxix. no. 349. p. 370. t Nov. Com. Pctrop. xiii. 



J Memoires tie I'lnjtitiit, Sciences Math. tom. i!. 



§ Hist. Nat. toin.xl. in 4to. || Phil, Trans. 17D9. 



Icton 



