Game Animals of India, etc. 



within the skull, and is stated to have ended (or rather 

 commenced) in the cavity situated between the eye and 

 the ear. Such an unusual backward extension of the 

 -tusks would, the writer points out, interfere with the 

 ordinary " eye-shot," as the bullet, on its way to the 

 brain, would have had to pass through the root of the 

 tusk. It is to be hoped that Mr. Hubback will either 

 publish a figure of this skull or send the specimen to 

 a London museum, where it may be examined by 

 anatomists, as the abnormality is certainly one of 

 considerable interest. According to the author's 

 description, it would appear that the roots of the tusks, 

 in place of being confined to the sheaths in the maxil- 

 lary bones (which, as already mentioned, terminate at 

 the base of the nasal chamber), extend upward, so as 

 to penetrate the sinuses of the frontal, and perhaps 

 also of the parietal, bones, this being effected by a 

 marked outward divergence from the normal course. 



Before concluding the subject, it may be mentioned 

 that elephants are peculiar among existing warm- 

 blooded quadrupeds for the almost vertical position 

 occupied by the bones of the limbs. The motions and 

 positions of the elephant's limb, as shown by instan- 

 taneous photography, are so peculiar that it is safe to 

 say the study of the skeleton alone would have given 

 a false conception of th.e animal. The two most 

 striking features are the great play of the wrist-joint 

 and the straightness of the limbs ; the bones of the 

 fore-limb, when in a standing posture, forming a nearly 

 vertical line from the shoulder-blade downwards. The 

 elbow-joint is, in fact, much straighter in extreme 

 extension than could have been inferred by fitting the 

 bones of the arm and fore-arm together. 



Still more remarkable is the fact that the Indian 

 elephant (together probably with its African cousin) 

 differs from all other mammals in the absence of a 

 distinct bag (pleuron) enclosing the lungs, which are 

 thus in direct contact with the walls of the chest. 



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