282 



THE ELEPIIAJy^T. 



[Part VIII. 



apparent ease. These, however, are trivial and ahnost 

 accidental advantages : on the other hand, owing to irre- 

 gularities in their growth, the tusks are sometimes an 

 impediment in feedmg' ; and in more than one instance 

 in the Government studs, tusks w^hich had so grown as 

 to approach and cross one another at the extremities, 

 have had to be removed by the saw, the contraction of 

 space between them so impeding the free action of the 

 trunk as to prevent the animal from conveying branches 

 to his mouth. ^ 



It is true that in capti\dty, and after a due course of 

 training, the elephant discovers a new use for his tusks 

 when employed in moving stones and pihng timber ; so 

 much so that a powerfid one will raise and carry on 

 them a log of half a ton weight or more. One even- 

 ing, whilst riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards 

 the scene of the massacre of Major Davie's party in 

 1803, my horse evinced some excitement at a noise 

 which approached us in the thick jungle, and which 

 consisted of a repetition of the ejaculation urmph! urmph! 

 in a hoarse and dissatisfied tone. A turn m the forest 

 explained the mystery, by bringing me face to face with 

 a tame elephant, unaccompanied by any attendant. He 



^ Among otlier eccentric forms, an 

 elephant was seen in 1844, in the dis- 

 ti'ict of Biutenne, neai- Friar's-Hood 

 Moimtain, one of whose tusks was so 

 bent that it took what sailors term a 

 '' round turn," and then resumed its 

 cuiTcd direction as before. In the 

 Museum of the College of Sui-geons, 

 London, there is a specimen, No. 2757, 

 of a spiral tusk. 



2 Since the foregoing remarks were 

 wi-ittcn relative to the midefined use 

 of tusks to the elephant, I have seen 

 a specidation on the same subject in 

 Dr. Holland's Conditidion of the 

 Animal Creation^ as e.rpn'ssed in 

 structural Appendai/cs : " but tlie con- 

 jecture of the author leaves the pro- 

 blem scarcely less obscure tlian be- 

 fore. Struck with the mere supple- 

 mental presence of the tusks, the 



absence of all apparent use serving to 

 distinguish them fi'om the essential 

 oi-gans of the creatm-e, Dr. IIoLLAifD 

 concludes that their production is a 

 process incident, but not ancillaiy, to 

 other important ends, especially con- 

 nected with the vital fmictions of the 

 trimk and the marvellous motive 

 powers inherent to it ; his conjec- 

 ture is, that they are " a species of 

 safety v.alve of the animal ceconomy," 

 — and that " they owe their develop- 

 ment to the prtnlominance of the 

 senses of touch and smell, conjointly 

 with the muscular motions of which 

 the exercise of these is accompanied." 

 '' Had there been no proboscis," he 

 thinks, ''there would have been 

 no supplementary appendages, — the 

 former creates the latter." — P. 246, 

 271. 



