ELEPHANT 



2000 



ELEPHANT 



The cutting teeth (incisors) on either side 

 of the upper jaw of elephants develop into 

 long tusks, which are used for grubbing food 

 or employed as weapons, and sometimes for 

 carrying articles. Tusks vary in size, some- 

 times being quite small, but in well-grown 

 males ofttimes weighing 200 pounds. The best 

 ivory of commerce, used for billiard balls, 

 chessmen and piano keys, is made of elephants' 

 tusks. See IVORY. 



Elephants grow from nine to fifteen feet 

 high and weigh 4,000 to 10,000 pounds, or 

 about four to ten times as much as the aver- 

 age horse. Although an elephant's head is 

 large and its forehead broad, its brain is com- 

 paratively small; yet the animal shows much 

 intelligence and can be taught. It is trained 

 for many uses, as it can carry about a ton's 

 weight at the rate of four miles an -hour, in 

 climates where horses could not be used as 

 beasts of burden. 



Differences between African and Indian Ele- 

 phants. African elephants are larger, stronger 

 and more fierce than those of Asia. Their 

 hide is tougher; their ears are longer; they 

 have three and four toes instead of five; the. 

 teeth are differently constructed, and both 

 sexes have tusks, whereas only the male Indian 

 elephant bears those weapons. The back of 

 the African elephant slopes decidedly from 

 shoulders to rump; the backs of the Indian 

 species are straighter. African elephants have 

 longer trunks than the Indian species, the 

 trunks sometimes being so long they drag on 

 the ground. Trunks of the Indian species end 

 in a more flexible, fingerlike extension. Moun- 

 tainous districts with scattered growths of trees 

 are the favorite homes of African elephants, 

 while Indian species delight in thickly-forested 

 mountainous places. The smaller Indian spe- 

 cies is the kind usually seen in menageries and 

 at the circus, but the well-remembered mam- 

 moth Jumbo of Barnum's circus, the largest 

 elephant ever taken into captivity, was brought 

 from Africa. 



African elephants are valued only as "big 

 game" and for what the dead body yields 

 hides for native shields, flesh for food and, 

 most important, the ivory tusks for weapons 

 and as articles of commerce. But in India 

 the living elephants also play important parts. 

 At one time they took part in wars of the 

 East, having been taught to fight with a kind 

 of sword carried in the trunk. They are now 

 trained in Asia for use in war to drag guns 

 and to carry baggage. In India, especially, 



they are the tourists' delight, for they are a 

 means of conveyance, carrying passengers in 

 pavilionlike structures called howdahs, fas- 

 tened to their backs. With the construction 

 of new roads, however, elephants are now less 

 used for that purpose. They are also used 

 in many kinds of labor, such as rolling and 

 carrying logs, fording streams with heavy bur- 

 dens, etc., and in all their tasks show adapta- 

 bility and understanding. 



Elephants are also used in hunting tigers in 

 India, the hunters being carried on the ele- 

 phants' backs and shooting from that elevated 

 and comparatively-safe position. Native rul- 

 ers, the rajahs, keep elephants for traveling, 

 and a rare species of white elephant is par- 

 ticularly valued for processions of Eastern 

 princes. 



Habits. Elephants are gregarious, or social, 

 animals; that is, they live in large-sized herds. 

 However, the old males, if they become very 

 ferocious, are sometimes driven out and must 

 live alone. In the jungles elephants feed at 

 night on fruits, leaves of certain trees, barks 

 of others, and on roots and cocoanuts. In 

 captivity 600 pounds of fodder a day, prefer- 

 ably hay, are required, besides smaller amounts 

 of sweet potatoes, sugar cane and rice. As 

 they suffer keenly from the heat of the sun, 

 during the daytime they rest in the shade or 

 wallow in some stream. To lie down, an ele- 

 phant must stretch its legs backward as if 

 kneeling, so it does not often do that, but 

 usually sleeps standing or leaning against a 

 tree. As Shakespeare says in his Troilus and 

 Cressida: 



The elephant hath joints, but none for cour- 

 tesy ; his legs are legs for necessity, not for 

 flexure. 



Female elephants bear usually one calf, but 

 sometimes two. Calves suckle with their 

 mouths, not their trunks, for about two years. 

 When elephants are in captivity, however, they 

 do not as a rule breed, and new captures must 

 be made to increase or renew the stock. It 

 has been estimated that an elephant will live 

 about 150 years in natural surroundings. 



Capture. Wild elephants are caught in 

 various ways. Sometimes pits are dug into 

 which the animals fall. The usual method, 

 however, is by surrounding a herd with men 

 on tame elephants and with beaters, and driv- 

 ing them into a large enclosure called a keddah. 

 When the opening to the enclosure is neared, 

 with great shouting, blowing of horns and beat- 

 ing of tom-toms the wild herd is crowded into 



