RACES 3 



one in the British Museum, which weighs 228 Ib. and measures 10 feet 

 2^ inches long. Its fellow is reported to have been of the same 

 approximate dimensions. Mr. Rowland Ward had a pair of East 

 African tusks, of which one measured 1 1 feet 5^ inches and the other 

 1 1 feet in length, but their united weight was only 293 Ib. Of a pair 

 of tusks from the White Nile, described by Sir William Garstin in the 

 Field of December 5, 1905, one weighed 159^ Ib. and measured 7 feet 

 1 1 inches in length, while the weight of the other was 135^ Ib. and its 

 length 8 feet 3 inches. In No. 6 of the Bulletin of the Paris Museum 

 of Natural History for 1907 (p. 402) Mr. G. Vasse, an African traveller, 

 gives a photograph of a tusk brought to Zanzibar in April of that year, 

 the weight of which was 97 kilogrammes (about 205 Ib.). It is stated 

 at the same time that a tusk from Dahomey exhibited in 1 900 weighed 

 no less than 117 kilogrammes (about 250 Ib.). 



That tusks from different parts of Africa possess distinctive 

 characteristics of their own is a fact well known to ivory merchants 

 and brokers ; and it would no doubt be possible to divide the species 

 into local races upon this evidence. Tusks, at any rate with 

 authenticated localities, are, however, by no means common in 

 museums, and it has accordingly been found more convenient to take 

 the ear as the basis for the definition of local races, although in one 

 instance reliance has been placed for this purpose on skull-characters. 

 In the Zoological Society's Proceedings for the year 1907 the writer 

 has attempted to classify by ear -characters such specimens of 

 African elephants as were at the time available ; but it is practically 

 certain that the local varieties recognised in this communication by 

 no means exhaust the list, and that there are other forms still to be 

 identified. 



An important feature in the ear of the species is the point or 

 " lappet " formed by the lower extremity, which varies greatly in shape 

 in the different races ; but in addition to this, there is a large amount 

 of local variation in regard to the contour of the ear as a whole, and, 

 likewise, in respect to its relative size. 



The four most diverse types of ear are respectively presented by the 

 West African, or South Cameroons, race, in which these organs are nearly 

 oval ; by the Addo Bush, or East Cape, race, in which they present a 

 squared form ; by the Masai elephant, in which they are small and 

 form an almost equilateral triangle ; and by the Abyssinian, or Sudan, 

 race, in which they are very large, and form a long and acutely pointed 

 triangle. 



Taking the various races according to their geographical distribution, 



