IX THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 220 
has hemispheres which are extremely well convoluted; but they 
leave the cerebellum entirely uncovered. This suggests a brain 
which is a great specialisation of a low type. The brain has 
been particularly compared with that of the Carnivora, with 
which group the Elephants agree in the characters of the 
placenta. It is, however, always a matter of the very greatest 
difticulty to compare the brains of mammals belonging to different 
orders. 
There are but two living species of Elephant, of both of 
which we shall now proceed to give some account. Only a few of 
the rather numerous fossil forms can be touched upon: here. 
The African Elephant, £. africanus, has been sometimes re- 
ferred to a distinct genus or sub-genus, Lowodon, by reason of the 
lozenge-shaped areas on the worn grinding-teeth. It lives, as its 
name denotes, in Africa. This species has a number of external 
features which enable it, to be distinguished from the Oriental 
Elephant. The head slopes back more, and has not the two 
rounded bosses which give so wise a countenance to the Indian 
species. The ears are very much larger. The tip of the trunk 
has a slight triangular projection on both the lower and the upper 
part of the cireumference of the aperture. There are four nails 
on the fore-feet and three on the hind. As in the Indian form, 
the toes are all bound together, and do not appear for any part as 
free digits. A thick pad of fat, etc., makes the animal when 
alive look as if plantigrade, whereas it is, as a matter of fact, 
digitigrade. In internal features the most prominent difference 
from ZH, indicus is in the molar teeth, which are ridged by much 
fewer ridges. The outside number for a single tooth in the 
present species is 10 or 11. In Hlephas indicus on the other 
hand there are as many as 27. 
The African Elephant, thinks Sir Samuel Baker, reaches a 
height of about 12 feet, and it will be remembered that the 
notorious “Jumbo” was found to be 11 feet high at the 
shoulder. The tusks are found in both sexes, as in the Indian 
beast, but are relatively larger in the female in the species now 
under consideration. It is also a rather more active creature, and 
is more savage ;' however it can be tamed, as is shown by several 
1 So convinced are some persons of the untameable character of the African 
Elephant, that it has even been suggested that the animals with which Hannibal 
crossed the Alps were not Z. africanus, but a now extinct species ! 
