20 The Wild Elephant. 



deeper into the jungle, repeating his cry of iirmph ! but 

 in a voice evidently meant to encourage us to advance. 

 Still the horse trembled ; and anxious to observe the 

 instinct of the two sagacious animals, I laid the rein upon 

 its neck and forbore any interference : again the ele- 

 phant of his own accord wedged himself further in 

 amongst the trees, and manifested some impatience that 

 we did not pass him. At length the horse moved for- 

 ward ; and when we were fairly past the elephant I looked 

 back and saw the wise creature stoop and take up its 

 unwieldy burthen, trim and balance it on its tusks, and 

 resume its route as before, hoarsely snorting its discon- 

 tented remonstrance. 



Bet-.veen the African elephant and that of Ceylon, 

 with the exception of the striking peculiarity of the 

 infrequency of tusks in the latter, the distinctions are 

 less apparent to a casual observer than to a scientific 

 naturalist. In the Ceylon species the forehead is higher 

 and more hollow, the ears are smaller, and, in a section 

 of the teeth, the grinding ridges, instead of being 

 lozenge-shaped, are transverse bars of uniform breadth. 



The Indian elephant is stated by Cuvier to have four 

 nails on the hind foot, the African variety having only 

 three ; but amongst the perfections of a high-bred ele- 

 phant of Ceylon, is always enumerated the possession 

 of twe?ify nails, whilst those of a secondary class have 

 but eighteen in all.^ 



' See Notes on the Natural History of its "back is concave while that of the 



C<'^/<j>2 by Sir J. Emerson Tennent, Indian variety is convex." {T/ie 



p. 60. Sir S. Baker adds as a distinc- Albert Nyanza, vol. i. p. 274.) 

 tive feature of the African elephant that 



