254 THE ELEPHANT. 



the animal's lifetime. It is owing to the tenacity with 

 which they hold fast to the jaw that the elephant is 

 enabled to obtain the chief part of its food, viz., suc- 

 culent bulbs, which it finds in the arid plains, and the 

 leaves, branches, and roots of trees ; for in the 

 event of the upper part of the latter being beyond 

 the reach of the creature's proboscis, it drives one of 

 its tusks (seldom or never both), in the manner of a 

 crowbar, under the roots of the tree, and, using it 

 as a lever, quickly succeeds in overthrowing it, the 

 sooner, as the mimosa, on which it chiefly feeds, has 

 no tap-root. But in this rough work the tusk is 

 not unfrequently broken. 



Another remarkable instance, showing how firmly 

 the tusks are imbedded in the skull of the elephant, 

 is related by Gordon Gumming, who, when speaking 

 of a huge brute that he had mortally wounded, 

 says : 



" Just as the pangs of death came over him, he 

 stood trembling violently beside a thorny tree, and 

 kept pouring water from his trunk into his mouth 

 until he died, when he pitched heavily forward, with 

 the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the 

 points of his tusks. He lay in this posture for 

 several seconds, but the amazing pressure of the 

 carcase was more than the head was able to sup- 

 port ; he had fallen with his head so short under 

 him, that the tusks received little assistance from 

 his legs. Something must give way : the strain on 

 the mighty tusks was fair; they did not, therefore, 

 yield ; but the portion of his head in which the 

 tusks were imbedded, extending a long way above 



