ORDER PROBOSCIDEA: PROBOSCIDEANS 317 



compressed terminal part, several inches in length. The upper pair 

 of incisors are enormously enlarged to form tusks, which are larger 

 in the male than in the female, or may in the latter sometimes be 

 lacking. These are used as weapons or in digging for roots. The 

 largest tusks come from Kenya Colony, with a record length on the 

 outside curve of 11 feet 5^ inches, and a weight for the two of 

 293 pounds (Roland Ward, 1935) . 



The African Elephants have at various times been subdivided into 

 local races by systematists, but there is still much doubt as to the 

 value of the characters claimed, and the number of valid geographical 

 forms. In general one may distinguish the larger "Bush Elephants" 

 and the smaller "Forest Elephants," the former distinguished by 

 minor additional points such as the larger, more elongated ears, the 

 more forwardly directed tusks, less abundant hair. There is a ques- 

 tion whether these two types should be regarded as merely races or 

 as separate species, but the likelihood is that they have evolved 

 side by side though in different habitats, the former avoiding the 

 denser forests, the latter keeping more strictly to their shelter, with 

 the result that at present the two types seem different enough for 

 separation as distinct species. The larger Bush Elephants, again, 

 have been regarded as of several local races, of which that of South 

 Africa, the first to be named, is at present much reduced in numbers. 

 Farther to the northeast, the East African animal has been named 

 L. a. knochenhaueri, and the Sudanese Elephant, L. a. oxyotis. There 

 is still much doubt as to the validity of the characters distinguishing 

 these races, but until series of skulls and measurements can be com- 

 pared one can only await further information. The character of the 

 ear lobe invoked, for example by Lydekker, is so subject to modi- 

 fication through distortion in dried or mounted specimens that 

 little reliance can be placed upon it. One may then consider the 

 status of the Bush Elephants as a whole, with special reference to 

 the South African race. 



In classical times elephants were found over most of Africa except 

 the most desert areas. There seems to be evidence that in ancient 

 times they were found abundantly in Abyssinia, for under the 

 Ptolemies, in the third century B. C., elephants for use in warfare 

 were captured and trained in Ethiopia on the shores of the Red Sea 

 and were taken thence in specially constructed boats to Egypt. 

 Entire army corps were sometimes engaged in their capture. In 

 Carthaginian days elephants were captured in Libya and in Maure- 

 tania among the forest-covered foothills of the Atlas Mountains. 

 Here, however, they have long ceased to exist and are not now found 

 north of the southern borders of the Sahara. In the eastern Sudan 

 elephants still occur in small numbers (I myself saw their "sign" 

 on the Blue Nile, near the Abyssinian border in 1913), but have 



