294 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



and some tribes of the American aborigines live exclusively 

 on it. 



The Camel, next to the Horse, is the most useful beast 

 of burthen. The Arabs greatly prize these creatures, and 

 from their power of carrying a supply of water in their 

 stomach, they are very useful in crossing the desert ; their 

 hoofs are also spread out so as to enable them better to 

 walk on the soft and yielding sand ; there are two kinds of 

 Camel, the Bactrian, with two humps, and the Arabian 

 Camel with but one. The Dromedary is a small agile breed 

 of the Arabian Camel, celebrated for its swiftness. 



6. The PACHYDERMATA or thick-skinned animals (fig. 64) 

 include the Elephant, Rhinoceros, Horse, Ass, and its 

 varieties ; Hog, Tapir, Hippopotamus, &c. ; these have many 

 of them a single solid hoof on each foot, as in the Horse and 

 Ass tribe, others have separate toes clothed with a hoof, as 

 in the Elephant. In nearly all the Pachydermata there is a 

 prolongation of the nose or upper lip, the Horse even has 

 some power of prehension in this part ; the Rhinoceros is 

 able to bring the upper lip into so fine a point as to pick up 

 a crumb, and in the Tapir there is a considerable prolonga- 

 tion of the nose, while the Elephant has this part developed 

 into a complete prehensile organ. 



The Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Hog are fond of wallowing 

 in the mud, with which they completely besmear themselves, 

 and seem to derive great satisfaction therefrom. There are 

 two kinds of Elephants, the Asiatic, cr Indian, and the 

 African, the chief disrinction between them is the size of 

 the ear, th^t of the African Elephant being of very great 

 si73 ": there is a very young specimen of this kind in the 

 ^British Museum, but a full-grown African Elephant has 

 never been brought to England. The Elephant is furnished 

 with a pair of enormous tusks proceeding from the upper 

 jaw, these are composed of solid ivory, and often weigh 

 nearly a hundred pounds each ; with the trunk, the Elephant 

 is able to gather food in the form of grass and herbage, and 

 put it into its mouth, it can also draw up a considerable 

 quantity of water, and this being poured down its throat 



