454 THE ELEPHANT 



may almost doubt whether the anachorets of the Thebaid, far 

 from improving their morals, did not become rather " roguish '* 

 from their unnatural seclusion. 



As the elephant surpasses all that breathes on earth in strengt]) 

 and weight, his mental faculties also assign to him one of tlie 

 first places in the animal creation. His docility, his attachment 

 to his master, his ready obedience, are qualities in which he is 

 scarcely inferior to the dog, and it is astonishing how easily he 

 suffers himself to be led by his puny guide. 



The dog has been the companion of man through an end- 

 less series of generations, a servitude of many centuries has 

 modified his physical and moral type ; but the elephant, whom, 

 in spite of his prodigious powers, we train to an equal obedience, 

 is always originally the free-born son of the forest (for he never 

 propagates in a state of captivity), and is often advanced in 

 years before being obliged to change the independence of the 

 woods for the yoke of thraldom. What services might not be 

 expected from an animal like this, were we able to educate 

 the species as we do the individual ? 



The elephant inhabits both Asia and Africa, but each of these 

 two parts of the world has its peculiar species. The African 

 elephant is distinguished by the lozenge-shaped prominences of 

 ivory and enamel on the surface of his 

 grinders, which in the Indian elephant are 

 narrow transverse bars of uniform breadth ; 

 his skull has a more rounded form, and is 

 deficient in the double lateral bump con- 

 spicuous in the former ; and he has only 

 '/■^^^ fifty-four vertebrae, while the Indian has 



Indian Elephant. , r\ -i 



Sixty-one. On the other hand, he possesses 

 twenty-one ribs, while the latter has only nineteen. His tusks 

 are also much larger, and his body is of much greater bulk, as 

 the female attains the stature of the fidl-grown Indian male. 

 The ear is at least three times the size, being not seldom above 

 four feet long, and broad, so that Dr. Livingstone mentions 

 having seen a negro, who under cover of one of these prodigious 

 flaps effectually screened himself from the rain. All these 

 differences of character appeared so great to M. Cuvier as to 

 induce him to consider the African elephant as a peculiar genus, 

 to whicli he applied the name of Loxodont. 



