The Wild Elephant. 



phant are straight and thick, weighing occasionally 150 

 pounds, and even 300 pounds. • But it is manifestly- 

 inconsistent with the idea that tusks were given to the 

 elephant to assist in digging for food, to find that the 

 females are less bountifully supplied with them than the 



■ I have no means of ascertaining 

 the dimensions of the largest tusks sup- 

 posed to have been obtained in conti- 

 nental India. Of those that I have 

 myself seen the greatest was taken from 

 an elephant killed by Sir Victor Brooke 

 Bart, at the Hassanoor Hills, in Coim- 

 batore in 1863. It measured 8 feet in 

 length, and when placed on end two 

 men each 6 feet high can with ease 

 stand side by side under the curved ex- 

 tremity. It is I ft. 6 in. in circumfer- 

 ence at the base and weighs no lbs. 

 This remarkable tusk is now in the 

 museum at Colebrooke Park in the 

 county Fermanagh. Its companion, 

 owing to disease, is a distorted lump 

 of ivory ; an almost shapeless mass 

 weighing 5o lbs. The life-long agony 

 endured by the poor animal who bore 

 it must have been frightful in the ex- 

 treme. Notwithstanding the inferior- 

 ity in weight of the Ceylon tusks, as 

 compared with those of the elephant 

 of India, it would, I think, be preci- 

 pitate to draw the inference that the 

 size of the former was uniformly and 

 naturally less than that of the latter. 

 The truth I believe to be, that if 

 permitted to grow to maturity, the 

 tusks of the one would, in all proba- 

 bility, equal those of the other; but, so 

 eager is the search for ivory in Ceylon, 

 that a tusker, when once observed in 

 a herd, is followed up with such vigilant 

 impatience, that he is almost invari- 

 ably shot before attaining his full 

 growth. General De Lima, when re- 

 turning from the governorship of the 

 Portuguese .settlements at Mozambi- 

 que, told nie, in 1S4S, that he had 



been requested to procure two tusks of 

 the largest size, and straightest possible 

 shape, which were to be formed into a 

 cross to surmount the high altar of the 

 cathedral at Goa : he succeeded in his 

 commission, and sent two, one of which 

 was 180 pounds' and the other 170 

 pound.s' weight, with the slightest pos- 

 sible curve. In a periodical entitled 

 The Friciiii, published in Ceylon, it is 

 stated in the volume for 1837 that the 

 officers belonging to the ships Quorrah 

 and Alburhak, engaged in the Niger 

 Expedition, were shown by a native 

 king two tusks, each two feet and a half 

 in circumference at the base, eight feet 

 long, and weighing upwards of 200 

 pounds. (Vol. i. p. 225.) Broderip, 

 in his Zoological Recreations, p. 255, 

 .says a tusk of 350 pounds' weight was 

 sold at Amsterdam, but he does not 

 quote his authority. Petherick in his 

 Account of Egypt, Soiida?i, &c. says 

 that in Central Africa the size of tusks 

 differs in different latitudes, those to- 

 wards the north being shorter, thicker, 

 less hollow, and heavier than those of the 

 south. Thus a tusk from the Nouaer, 

 Dinka, or Shilook tribes will weigh 

 120 lbs., while one from Bari would 

 weigh only 70 lbs. or 80 lbs. " Indeed," 

 he adds, " I have known a tusk from 

 Nouaer to weigh 185 lbs., its length 

 being seven feet two inclus, and its 

 greatest thickness at the base nine 

 inches." (Petherick, p. 418.) Sir 

 S. Baker, in his explorations of the 

 White Nile, saw monster tusks of 160 

 lbs. ; and one in the possession of a 

 trader weighed 172 lbs. [The Albert 

 Nyanza, vol. i. p. 273.) 



