ORDER PROBOSCIDEA: PROBOSCIDEANS 311 



tions the taxonomic status of all but 4 in the latter group. The 

 distribution of the family covers southeastern Asia (India, Burma, 

 Ceylon, Thailand, French Indo-China, Malay Peninsula) , Sumatra, 

 Borneo (introduced?), and the greater part of Africa south of the 

 Sahara. Accounts of three forms are supplied herein. 



Malay Elephant 



ELEPHAS MAXIMUS HIRSUTUS Lydekker 



Elephas maximus hirsutus Lydekker, Abstr. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, no. 130, 

 p. 20, 1914. ("Kuala Pila district of the Negri Sembilan province of the 

 Malay Peninsula" (Lydekker, 19146, pp. 285-286).) 



FIGS.: Lydekker, 19146, p. 285, fig. 1; Lydekker, 1916, vol. 5, p. 84, fig. 25. 



The Elephant of the Malay Peninsula is regarded by competent 

 authorities (e. g., F. N. Chasen, in litt., March 31, 1937) as "a 

 vanishing form." 



This subspecies is "characterized by the square, instead of tri- 

 angular, form of the ear, the early date at which its upper margin 

 is bent over, and the presence in the young condition ... of a 

 thick coat of black and in part bristly hair" (Lydekker, 1914a, 

 p. 20). 



The northward range of the Malay Elephant has not been de- 

 termined; it will here be provisionally considered to extend as far 

 as the Isthmus of Kra, in Peninsular Siam. In the remainder of 

 Siam and in French Indo-China the Elephant belongs presumably 

 to the Indian subspecies and is reported as more or less common 

 (Gyldenstolpe, 1919, p. 169; James L. Clark, in litt., June 26, 1936; 

 P. Vitry, in litt., December, 1936; Roche, in litt., 1937). 



Malay States Flower says (1900, p. 365) : "Wild elephants do 

 not occur in either Penang or Singapore, nor are tame ones em- 

 ployed there; but on the continent, both in Siam and the Malay 

 Peninsula, elephants are found wild in suitable localities, and are 

 trained for various purposes. ... I saw more or less trained 

 elephants in ... Kedah, and Perak, but in the Southern Malay 

 States the people do not seem to catch and tame them." He also 

 (p. 366) quotes H. J. Kelsall (1894) to the effect that "the elephant 

 appears to be common throughout Johore"; and H. N. Ridley 

 (1894) as remarking that "the elephant, though common all through 

 Pahang, is never caught and tamed." 



Referring to conditions from 1900 on, Burgess writes (1935, 

 p. 249) : "Elephants roam all over the peninsula and are common as 

 far south as Johore. . . . Since only a small fraction of the jungle 

 has yet been cleared, the probabilities are that large herds have 

 not been seen." 



