471 



UNGULATA. 



Order PROBOSCIDEA. 



Genus Eleplias. 



2654. The skeleton of a large male Indian Elephant (Eleplias indicus). 



The vertebral formula is : 7 cervical, 20 dorsal, 3 lumbar, 3 sacral, and 31 caudal. The 

 last pair of ribs has not been preserved. Anapophyses are developed from the sixteenth 

 dorsal, and articulate with metapophyses from the seventeenth. The same joints are super- 

 added to the ordinary articular processes, as far as the last lumbar. Both tusks have been 

 fractured. Five pairs of ribs directly join the sternum, of which in the present articulated 

 skeleton but two bones are preserved, two others being represented by models. The epi- 

 physes are still detached from the bodies of the vertebrae and from the long bones of the . 

 extremities, except the proximal end of the radius. 



The animal from which this skeleton was obtained was brought to England in the year 

 1810, when it was of a size not too great to be exhibited on the stage of Covent Garden 

 Theatre in a pantomime; and was probably not less than ten years old. It was next 

 exhibited in a travelling menagerie by Mr. Polito, and at his death, in 1814, was purchased 

 by Mr. Cross, for the collection of live animals then kept at Exeter Change. Here it con- 

 tinued to live and grow, and was submissive to the control of its keepers until the year 1820, 

 when it was first subject to excitement, and attempted to kill a keeper. Similar paroxysms 

 recurred, with increasing force, annually, until the year 1826, when the violence of the ani- 

 mal was such as to compel the proprietor of Exeter Change to put it to death. The particulars 

 of the catastrophe are detailed in Hone's ' Every-day Book,' and in Griffith's translation of 

 Cuvier's ' Regne Animal,' vol. iii. p. 348. 



Purchased. 



2655. The base of the left tusk of the same male Elephant. 



It shows, by the irregular deposit of osteodentine in the pulp-cavity, and by the destruction 

 of part of the parietes of the same cavity, the evidence of the inflamed state of the large 

 matrix of the tusk, which may probably have aggravated the excited and ungovernable state 

 of the animal previous to its being put to death. 



Purchased. 



2656. The skull of a large male Elephant from Ceylon. 



The penultimate and part of the last molars were in use. The last seven plates, with the 

 common dentinal base of some anterior plates of the penultimate grinders, have been worn, 

 and the first five plates of the last lower molars ; but only the anterior angles of the last 



