ui8 THE UNGULATES, OR HOOFED MAMMALS 



Perhaps, however, the most important characteristic of this species is to be 

 found in the structure of the molar teeth, which are of the same type as the example 

 represented in the illustration on p. 1117. In these teeth the plates of enamel- 

 bordered ivory are very thin and closely approximated, and may reach as many as 

 twenty-four in the last of the series. The enamel is thrown into a number of fine 

 puckerings, and each enamel-bordered area forms a greatly-elongated and irregular 

 ellipse. In the first tooth (as shown in the figure on p. 1114), the number of the 

 ridges is usually four, in the second eight, in the third and fourth about twelve, in the 

 fifth sixteen, while in the last it may, as already mentioned, be as many as twenty-four. 

 The general color of the skin is blackish gray, but there are fre- 

 quently flesh-colored mottlings on the forehead, the root of the trunk, 

 and the ears. Occasionally so-called white elephants are met with, which are really 

 albinos; the dark pigment being absent from a larger or smaller area of the skin; in 

 Burma and Siam such albinos being highly valued, and considered as sacred or royal 

 animals. Although, as already mentioned, the skin is nearly naked, it has a few 

 sparsely-scattered hairs; and it has been quite recently discovered that there are 

 faint remnants of a woolly fur, similar to that so fully developed in the extinct mam- 

 moth. This discovery is very important, since, taken in connection with the Indian 

 elephant's well-known intolerance of heat, it indicates that the animal is descended 

 from one inhabiting temperate or cold climates. 



As in the case of most large animals, the height of the Indian ele- 

 phant has been greatly exaggerated; but the tendency of recent 

 observers has been rather to depreciate the maximum size which it may occasionally 

 attain. On the average, the height of the adult male does not exceed nine feet, and 

 that of the female eight feet; but these dimensions are occasionally considerably 

 exceeded. Sanderson measured a male standing nine feet seven inches at the 

 shoulder, and measuring twenty-six feet two and one-half inches from the tip of the 

 trunk to the extremity of the tail; and he records others respectively reaching nine 

 feet eight inches and nine feet ten inches at the shoulder. An elephant shot by 

 General Kinloch stood upward of ten feet one inch; and another measured by San- 

 derson ten feet seven and one-half inches. These dimensions are, however, exceeded 

 by a specimen killed by the late Sir Victor Brooke, which is reported to have 

 reached a height of eleven feet; and there is a rumor of a Ceylon elephant of twelve 

 feet. That such giants may occasionally exist is indicated by a skeleton in the 

 Museum at Calcutta, which is believed to have belonged to an individual living be- 

 tween 1856 and 1860 in the neighborhood of the Rajamahal hills, in Bengal. As. 

 now mounted this enormous skeleton stands eleven feet three inches at the shoulders, 

 but Mr. O. S. Fraser, in a letter to the Asian newspaper, states that it is made ta 

 stand too low, and that its true height was several inches more. If this be so, there 

 can be no doubt that, when alive, this elephant must have stood fully twelve feet. 

 It may be added that the height of an Indian elephant is almost precisely twice the 

 circumference of its fore-foot. 



With regard to the maximum weight of this species, we have no information. 

 An immature male of eight feet in height weighed, however, 5,800 pounds; while a 

 second, of seven and one-half feet in height, turned the scale at 5,200 pounds. 



