40 



SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



Some have asserted, that these tusks are shed in the same man- 

 ner as the stag sheds its horns ; but it is very probable, from their 

 solid consistence, arid from their accidental defects, which often 

 appear to be the effect of a slow decay, that they are as fixed as 

 the teeth of other animals are generally found to be. Certain it is, 

 that the elephant, in a domestic state, never sheds them, but keeps 

 them till they become inconvenient and cumbrous to the last 

 degree. 



This animal is equally singular in other parts of its conformation ; 

 the lips and the tongue in other creatures serve to suck up and 

 direct their drink or their food ; but in the elephant they are totally 

 inconvenient for such purposes. It not only gathers its food with 

 its trunk, but supplies itself with water by the same means. When 

 it eats hay, it takes up a small wisp of it with the trunk, turns and 

 shapes it with that instrument for some time, and then directs it 

 into the mouth, where it is chewed by the great grinding teeth, 

 that are large in proportion to the bulk of the animal. This pac- 

 quet, when chewed, is swallowed, and never ruminated again, as 

 in cows or sheep, the stomach and intestines of this creature more 

 resembling those of a horse. Its manner of drinking is equally 

 extraordinary. 



For this purpose, the elephant dips the end of his trunk into the 

 water, and sucks up just as much as fills that great fleshy tube 

 completely. It then lifts up its head with the trunk full, and turn- 



