142 PACHYDERMATA. 



SECTION XX. 

 SECOND SUB-CLASS. UNGULATA. 



ORDER 7. PACHYDERMATA, (Gr. na^g, pachus, thick; 

 derma, skin.) 



The animals included in this order are for the most part of 

 large size; some of them are of truly gigantic proportions, being 

 the largest of all land animals. They are called PACHYDERMATA, 

 on account of the massive thickness and solidity of the skin ; a 

 peculiarity which strikingly distinguishes the more prominent 

 species. These animals are thinly covered with bristly hairs, 

 or else almost entirely naked ; and their external appearance is 

 frequently rough and coarse. They inhabit the warm latitudes 

 of Asia, Africa and America. One genus. (Sus,) the Wild Boar, 

 is found wild in Europe; and two or three others, used for pur- 

 poses of economy, are now almost universally distributed by do- 

 mestication. The Pachydermata, for the larger part, live upon 

 vegetable food, such as grasses and watery herbage, and the suc- 

 culent plants of the tropics. Their molar teeth are compound, 

 often triple, with flattened crowns; in many there is a peculiar 

 development of the canines or the incisors into curved and pro- 

 jecting tusks. The muzzle is frequently produced into a probos- 

 cis, or trunk, as in the Elephants, Tapirs, and, in a less degree, 

 in the Hogs. 



I. FAMILY PROBOSCIDAE, (Gr. nQo6o;xl$, proboscis, a trunk;) 

 including the Elephant Mammoth, and Mastodon. These are 

 MuUungulate, (many -hoofed.) 



Elephas, (Gr. 'ettyas, elephas ) The ELEPHANT. 



Of this magnificent animal there are two species, Elephas 

 Indicus, or Asiaticus, and E. Africus. Both species are distin- 

 guished by their enormous tusks, which project downwards from 

 the upper jaw of the male Elephants, of India, and of both males 

 and females, of the African Elephants ; also by the absence of 

 front teeth from the lower jaw; and by having five hoofs on each 

 fore foot. The enormously large tusks are seated in the bones, 

 from which the incisor teeth proceed in other quadrupeds, and 

 continue to grow while the animal lives. The grinders or molar 

 teeth strongly resemble those of many of the RODENTIA. These 

 are made up of a certain number of vertical laminae, each formed 

 of bone, covered with enamel, and held together by a third sub- 

 stance, called the cortical, (Lat. cortix, bark.) They are changed 

 six or eight times in the course of the Elephant's life. The 



