NATURAL HISTORY. 



1 Lo ! from his trunk uptum'd aloft he flings 

 The grateful shower ; and now 

 He plucks the broad-leafed bough." SOUTHKY. 



There are in this trunk no less than four thousand muscles, which 

 is considerably greater than the number in the whole 

 human body. It is divided through its length by * 

 septum, forming a sort of double tube, terminating in a 

 kind of finger-like appendage, or moveable hook. 



435. The trunk of the elephant may justly be considered as one of 

 the miracles of nature, being at once the organ of respiration as well 

 as the instrument by which the animal supplies itself with food. 

 Nearly eight feet in length, endowed with exquisite sensibility, and 

 stout in proportion to the massive size of the animal, this organ will 

 uproot trees or gather grass raise a piece of artillery or take up a 

 nut, kill a man or brush off a fly. It conveys the food to the mouth, 

 and pumps up enormous draughts of water, which by its recurvature 

 turned into and driven down the capacious throat, or showered 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. A glance 

 at the head of an elephant will 

 show the thickness and strength 

 of the trunk at its insertion ; and 

 the massy arched bones of the 

 face > and tbick muscular neck, 

 are admirably adapted for 

 supporting and working this 

 powerful and wonderful instru- 



436. Why is the elephant provided with tusks? 



They are weapons of defence, combining enormous powers upon a 

 fixed and irresistible base, in connection with a flexible trunk, by 

 which the moveable tusks are brought into effective operation. 



That they are weapons of defence is obvious from the fact that 

 they are larger in the males than in the females, which is generally 

 the case with the horns of ruminants, some of the males only of 

 the latter order having these appendages. 



JIaunder's "Treasury of Natural History." 

 7 



