CHAPTER XI. 



THE ELEPHANT, TAPIR, HYRAX, AND RHINOCEROS. 



THE ELEPHANT. 



A 



BY F. C. SELOUS. 



T once the mightiest and most majestic of all terrestrial 

 mammals, the elephant appeals to the imagination more 

 forcibly than any other living animal, not only on 

 account of its great sagacity and the strangeness and singularity 

 of its outward appearance, but also because it is such an obvious 

 link 'between the world of to-day and the dim and distant past 

 of Pleiocene and Miocene times. 



There are two existing species of elephant, the AFRICAN 

 and the ASIATIC, the latter, from the structure of its molar 

 teeth and the shape of its skull, appearing to be very nearly 

 related to the MAMMOTH, which lived upon the earth in 

 comparatively recent times geologically speaking and was 

 undoubtedly contemporary with man in Europe during the 

 Stone Age. 



There are very considerable differences both in the external 

 appearance and also in the habits of the two existing forms 

 of elephant. In the African species the forehead is more 

 convex and the eye relatively larger than in its Asiatic cousin ; 

 and whilst the ears of the latter are only of moderate size, 

 those of the former are so large that they at once arrest the 

 attention, and are one of that animal's most remarkable external 

 characteristics. Both sexes of the African species, with few 

 exceptions, carry well-developed tusks, but in the Asiatic form 

 the tusks of the females are so small as scarcely to protrude 

 beyond the jaws. In Asia, too, tuskless bull elephants are 

 common, whilst males of the African species without tusks 

 are extremely rare. The latter species has but three nails on 

 the hind foot, the Asiatic elephant four. In the African 

 species the middle of the back is hollowed, the shoulder being the highest point, whilst 

 in the Asiatic elephant the back is arched, and the top of the shoulder lower than the highest 

 part of the back. The extremity of the proboscis is also different in the two species, the 

 African elephant being furnished with two nearly equal-sized prolongations, the one on the 

 front, the other on the hinder margin, with which small objects can be grasped as with 

 the finger and thumb of the human hand, whilst in the Asiatic species the finger-like 

 process on the upper margin of the end of the trunk is considerably longer than that on 

 the under-side. In external appearance the skin of the African elephant is darker in colour 

 and rougher in texture than that of the Asiatic form. The molar teeth of the former animal 

 are, too, of much coarser construction, with fewer and larger plates and thicker enamel 



172 



Photo by M. E. F. Baird, Esq. 



A FINE TUSKEB. 



The male Indian elephant has smaller 

 tusks than the African species. 



