472 The Outline of Science 



The Elephant 



The Elephant type, now represented by two species, the 

 African and the Indian, exhibits many zoological peculiarities 

 besides the familiar trunk and tusks. Thus the limbs are quite 

 unique among living mammals in their straightness ; they form 

 vertical pillars adapted to support the huge weight of the body. 

 But there is even greater interest in the ways of the creature. 

 According to Sir Samuel Baker (Wild Beasts and their Ways, 

 1890), the African Elephant can charge for a short distance at 

 the rate of fifteen miles an hour, and keep up the rate of ten 

 miles an hour for a long run. The tusks which form the weapons 

 of the males in their furious combats are used by both sexes in 

 everyday life for digging up roots for food. It is said that an 

 elephant does not reach proper maturity till it is forty years old, 

 and that it may live far over a century. It is one of the slowest 

 of breeders and carries its young for twenty-two months before 

 birth. Yet we recall Darwin's calculation that after a period of 

 750 years there would be nearly nineteen million elephants alive, 

 descended from a single pair. The cerebral hemispheres of the 

 big brain are richly convoluted, and the creature is so intelligent 

 that "elephant stories" are proverbial. Of its memory, of its 

 capacity for learning both in peace and war, and of its practical 

 judgment, there is no doubt. 



Chewing the Cud 



Some of the hoofed animals, such as cattle, sheep, and deer, 

 illustrate an interesting peculiarity called chewing the cud, or 

 rumination. These animals feed, as everyone knows, on grass and 

 herbage, and it is often important for them to eat as much as they 

 can in a short time. A choice patch must be utilised to the full, 

 and there is always the danger of an attack from carnivores. So 

 the ancestors of our sheep and cattle got into the habit of gorging 

 themselves with hastily swallowed grass, and then of retiring to 

 the place of safety often with their backs against a rock so that 



