146 NEIGHBORS WITH CLAWS AND HOOFS. 



water, or of ejecting it with violence ; it also terminates 

 on the upper side in a sort of fleshy finger, and below in 

 a similar protuberance, which answers to the opposing 

 power of the thumb, and thus it can lift the minutest 

 object. 



5. Endowed with exquisite sensibility, nearly eight 

 feet in length, and stout in proportion to the massive size 

 of the whole animal, this organ, at the volition of the ele- 

 phant, will uproot trees or gather grass, raise a piece of 

 artillery or pick up a comfit, kill a man or brush off a fly. 

 It conveys the food to the mouth, and pumps up the enor- 

 mous draughts of water, which, by its recurvature, are 

 turned into and driven down the capacious throat or show- 

 ered over the body. Its length supplies the place of a 

 long neck, which would have been incompatible with the 

 support of the large head and weighty tusks of the animal. 



6. The elephant is a pachyderm, and its skin, like that 

 of the horse, is extremely sensitive, so that it feels the 

 attacks of the tiniest insects; hence he takes care to 

 syringe it with his trunk, cover it with dust and saliva, or 

 fan it with a leafy bough. The skin has muscles attached 

 to it, so that the elephant, like the horse, can, by a sort of 

 quivering motion, shake off flies and loose particles of dust. 



7. In its mode of life the elephant is strictly herbiv- 

 orous, feeding upon grass, young shoots of trees, and suc- 

 culent roots. His whole conformation is eminently for 

 such subsistence, and points to the tropical valley and fer- 

 tile river- side as the localities where he can enjoy, at all 

 seasons, herbage and water in abundance. Though created 

 for the jungle and forest, where heat and moisture are the 

 chief vegetative agents, yet the elephant, by his weight 

 and size, is excluded from the swamp. He bathes in the 

 river and lake only where the bottom is firm and secure, 

 and rolls on the sward or in the forest glade. Confined to 



