ITS 



THE INDIAN FA UNA 



The Indian elephant is almost hairless, with a few faint traces of woolly fur 

 such as that of the mammoth, and a tuft of long hairs at the end of the tail. On 

 the fore-feet five of the toes have nails, but on the hind-feet only four are thus 

 provided. The trunk, unlike that of the African species, is as uniformly flexible 

 as an indiarubber tube, and has a single finger-like process on the upper margin of 

 the tip. The tusks in the females are short and rudimentary, but in the males 

 they are generally well developed, although in some of the latter they are reduced 



to small stumps like 

 those of the females. 

 The colour of the 

 body is a uniform 

 blackish grey, often 

 varied with small 

 flesh-coloured spots 

 on the forehead, the 

 base of the trunk, 

 and the ears. The 

 more or less white 

 elephants considered 

 sacred in Siam are 

 merely partial al- 

 binos. 



The shoulder- 

 height is almost ex- 

 actly double the 

 circumference of the 

 fore - foot. Fully 

 grown females are, 

 as a rule, no higher 

 than 8 feet, while 

 the average height 

 of the males is about 

 9 feet, though a few 

 are recorded as hav- 

 ing exceeded 10 feet. 

 One of the longest 

 tusks known meas- 

 ured 8 feet in length, 

 nearly 17 inches in 

 circumference, and weighed 74£ lbs. Another shorter tusk is said to have had a 

 weight of 110 lbs. In both these cases the tusk was the only one, so that it is 

 supposed to have been unusually well developed. 



Forests in undulating or mountainous districts, generally those containing 

 many bamboos, are the favourite haunts of the Indian elephant, though at the 

 beginning of the rainy season these animals often move for awhile into grassy 

 plains. They live in herds of from sometimes as many as a hundred in number, 



- a/./c± 



INDIAN ELEPHANTS. 



