X Preface. 



Professor Schlegel of Leyden, in a paper lately 

 submitted by him to the Royal Academy of Sciences 

 of Holland, (the substance of which he obligingly 

 communicated to me, through Baron Bentinck the Ne- 

 therlands Minister at this Court), confirmed the iden- 

 tity of the Ceylon elephant with that found in the 

 Lampongs of Sumatra. The osteological comparison of 

 which Temminck has given the results was, he says, con- 

 ducted by himself with access to four skeletons of the 

 latter ; and the more recent opportunity of comparing 

 a living Sumatran elephant with one from Bengal, served 

 to establish other though minor points of divergence. 

 The Indian species is more robust and powerful; 

 the proboscis longer and more slender ; and the extre- 

 mity, (a point in which the elephant of Sumatra resem- 

 bles that of Africa,) is more flattened and provided with 

 coarser and longer hair than that of India. 



Professor Schlegel, adverting to the large export of 

 elephants from Ceylon to the Indian continent, which 

 has been carried on from time immemorial, suggests the 

 caution with which naturalists, in investigating this 

 question, should first satisfy themselves whether the ele- 



dorsales, 3 lombaires, 4 sacrees et velle, un male et une femelle adultes 



34 caudales ; 20 paires de cotes, et un jeune male. Nous n'avons 



dont 6 vraies et 14 fausses. pas encore ete a meme de nous 



" Ces caracteres ont ete constates procurer la depouille de cette 



sur trois squelettes de I'espece nou- espece." 



