152 MAMMALIA. 



gerated notions of the intelligence of these animals. After studying 

 them for a long time, we have not found it to surpass that of the Dog, or 

 of many other carnivorous animals. Naturally of a mild disposition, 

 Elephants live in herds, which are conducted by old males. Their food 

 is strictly vegetable. 



Their distinctive character consists in the grinders, the bodies of which 

 are composed of a certain number of vertical lamina, each one being 

 formed of a bony substance, enveloped with enamel, and cemented toge- 

 ther by a third substance, called cortical; in a word, similar to those we 

 have already seen to exist in the Cabiais and other Rodentia. These 

 grinders succeed each other, not vertically, or as our permanent teeth 

 succeed the milk ones, but from behind forwards, so that as fast as one 

 tooth becomes worn, it is pushed forward by that which comes after it; 

 hence it happens that the Elephant has sometimes one, sometimes two 

 grinders on each side, or four or eight in all, according to his time of 

 life. The first of these teeth are always composed of fewer laminae 

 than those which replace them. It is asserted that certain Elephants 

 thus shed their teeth eight times — their tusks, however, are changed but 

 once. 



The Elephants of the present day, clothed with a rough skin nearly 

 destitute of hair, are only found in the torrid zone of the eastern conti- 

 nent, where hitherto only two species have been ascertained. 



E. indicus, Cuv.; Buff. XI. i, and Supp. III. lix. (The Ele- 

 phant of India). An oblong head, with a concave forehead; the 

 crowTi of the grinders presenting transverse undulating fillets, these 

 being sections of the lamina that compose them, and being worn by 

 trituration. This species has rather smaller ears than the next one, 

 and has four nails to the hind foot. It is found from the Indus to 

 the Eastern ocean, and in large islands in the south of India. They 

 have been used from the earliest ages as beasts of draught and bur- 

 den, but it has hitherto been found impossible to make them propa- 

 gate in a domestic state, although the assertion respecting their 

 modesty and repugnance to copulate before witnesses is wholly with- 

 out foundation. The females have very short tusks, and in this 

 respect, many of the males resemble them, 



E. africanvs, Cuv.; Perrault, Mem. pour I'Hist. des An., and 

 F. Cuv. Mammif. (The African Elephant). A round head; con- 

 vex forehead; large ears; the crowns of the grinders divided into 

 lozenges ; it appears very frequently to have but three nails to the 

 hind foot. Found from Senegal to the Cape of Good Hope. 

 Whether they ascend the eastern coast of Africa, or whether they 

 are replaced there by the preceding species, is not known. The 

 tusks of the female are as large as those of the male, and the weapon 

 itself, generally speaking, is larger than in the Indian species. The 

 ALfrican Elephant is not now tamed, though it appears that the Car- 

 thaginians employed it in the same way that the inhabitants of India 

 do theirs. 



In nearly every part of the two continents, are found, under 

 ground, the bones of a species of Elephant allied to that of India, 

 but with narrower and straighter coronal fillets, the alveoli for lodg- 



