" CONTRE-EVOLUTION" 207 



manifestement des dents utiles. Comme le dit Abel, " son alimentation 

 a du etre la meme que celle de 1'Hippopotame, a comparer les deux 

 dentures. 



And what about the " alimentation " of these animals ? I 

 am inclined to attribute to it the chief importance in the produc- 

 tion of the dental abnormality. The author's own remarks bear 

 out my contention that the pathology of the case is intimately 

 connected with its Bio-Economics : 



La grande incisive inferieure servait d dtterrer et d tbranler les plantes 

 principalement aquatiques et paludeennes. (Italics mine.) 



In other words, the animal had in course of time become a 

 terrible plant-carnivore. What Dr. Larger overlooks is this : 

 that the pathology really began precisely at the moment when 

 the elephant, though still a cross-feeder, yet commenced to 

 destroy wholesale higher plants the chosen partners of the higher 

 mammals appropriating huge quantities of food without any 

 biological counter-service. (Indian elephants devour the leaves 

 of palm, fig and jak trees. In captivity a large " tusker " needs 

 800 Ibs. of green fodder in eighteen hours.) 



All that the author concludes is that the tusks have become 

 what they are as a result of a pathological cause. What that 

 cause is he cannot tell us, except by stating that evidently 

 " Centre-Evolution " has exercised itself upon a special organ. 



Far, far away, in the Eocene, the incisors had a more normal 

 appearance, since they functioned more normally. That is to 

 say, the animal was less predaceous, and, no doubt, filled some 

 useful, i.e., symbiotic role in the economy of Nature. Like all 

 origins of elementary species, that of the elephant's progenitor 

 was due to symbiotic cross-feeding. This engendered power, 

 which the animal subsequently abused, if only by blind or 

 unredemptive destruction of important vegetation. 



We learn further : 



Chez PalcBomastodon Beadnelli (Eocene superieur), les deux incisives 

 m6dianes disparaissent, tandis que les deux externes d'en haut s'allongent 

 et commencent deja a devier 1'une de 1'autre. Quant aux deux incisives 

 inf6rieures, elles s'accouplent parallelement en forme d'un veritable double 

 soc de scarificateur instrument, comme Ton sait, employe en agriculture, 

 elles sont evidemment destinies a fouiller le sol pour en degager les plantes 

 dont se nourrit 1'animal : les incisives superieures remplissant les fonctions 

 d'un coutre double. Les incisives inferieures, dit encore Abel, servaient 

 a deterrer les racines et les bulbes, comme chez les Suides actuels. 



Here then we find a kind of agricultural implement employed 



i 



