116 HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT. 



the fronds of those plants, in order that the animals might 

 feed upon them. 



The tusks of the elephant are two in number, and they 

 vary much with the age and sex of the individual, and 

 there appear to be also permanent varieties of this kind, 

 the cause of which is not known. In the females they 

 are generally much smaller than in the males ; and it is 

 not till the female has attained the age of several years, 

 that they project beyond the mouth. In India, where ele- 

 phants are most used, and therefore more attended to than 

 in any other part of the world, there are several distinctions 

 made from the size and shape of these extremities. The 

 perfect elephant, called pulley dant, has the tusks project- 

 ing forwards and upwards. Those called dauntelah) or 

 elephants with large teeth, vary from the projecting hori- 

 zontal, to the nearly straight tusks of the mooknah, which 

 point directly downwards. Between these two there is a 

 great variety in the form of the tusks. The largest teeth 

 found in the male elephant, are from five to eight feet in 

 length, and from four to eight inches in diameter, and 

 weigh from twenty to eighty pounds each tooth. In the 

 mode of their growth, though not in their substance, their 

 tusks bear a much nearer resemblance to the hollow horns 

 of the ruminantia ; and, indeed, from the vast quantity of 

 animal matter, and the comparatively small portion of salts 

 of lime, ivory approaches, perhaps, as near to horn as it 

 does to bone, and more so than to enamel, of which the 

 tusks of the elephant contain little or none. In their very 

 young state, elephants have milk-tusks, which have very 

 little adherence to the bones of the head ; those drop off 

 when the animal is about fourteen or fifteen months old, 

 and soon after the permanent tusks make their appearance, 

 and are not shed while the animal lives. They continue 

 growing by a new layer of ivory on the inner surface, which 

 is secreted by the pulpy substance on the core filling the 



