HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT. 113 



sed in water as far as the opening, the trunk answers the 

 purpose of a drinking horn, as the animal can suck it full, 

 and then, elevating the head and the basal part, and re- 

 curving the extremity downwards and inwards, blow the 

 whole contents into the mouth. The extremity of the 

 proboscis is on the upper side formed into a sort of rounded 

 lip, which bears some analogy to the fingers of a hand, 

 while the underside terminates in a single elongated tuber- 

 cle, which has the same analogy to the thumb. The body 

 of the trunk is made up of an immense number of muscles 

 with their tendons, amounting in all to not less than four 

 thousand, which is considerably greater than the number 

 in the whole human body. Those muscles have their in- 

 sertions in the external and internal coverings of the trunk ; 

 and they lie in a great variety of directions, some longitu- 

 dinal, some nearly circular, and some oblique. The va- 

 riety of motions which may result from the union of so 

 many moving forces, so differently placed with regard to 

 each other, and of which we may suppose any number, 

 from one to the whole, capable of moving at one time, is 

 far greater than any ordinary arithmetic can sum up. The 

 most powerful motion of the trunk is that of the under 

 side ; and when it curls round, which it sometimes does so 

 as to form two hands, one by the curling fold, and one by 

 the lip and tubercle at the end, the curl is always down- 

 wards, though it can complete a ring of the curl someway 

 up the trunk, and leave a portion of the extremity free, by 

 which means the prehensile part at the extremity can act 

 upon what is held in the fold. The oblique muscles ena- 

 ble the trunk to be twisted, so as to place the loop of the 

 fold longitudinally ; and with the trunk placed this way an 

 elephant will hold a bottle and extract a cork with the 

 greatest neatness. The oblique muscles also act in elon- 

 gating and shortening the trunk, in a manner similar to 

 that in which many of the Annelida, or ringed animals can 

 elongate and shorten their whole bodies. The trunk itself 

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