ANIMALS. 



465 



from the upper jaw, and are sometimes found above six feet 

 long. Some have supposed them to be rather the horns than 

 the teeth of this animal ; but besides their greater similitude to 

 bone than to horn, they have been indisputably found to grow 

 from the upper jaw, and not from the frontal bones, as some 

 have thought proper to assert.' Some also have asserted, that 

 these tusks are shed in the same manner as the stag sheds its horns ; 

 but it is very probable, from their solid consistence, and from 

 their accidental defects, which often appears to be the effect of 

 a slow decay, that they are as fixed as the teeth of other animals 

 are generally found to be. Certain it is, that the elephant never 

 sheds them in a domestic state, but keeps them till they become 

 inconvenient and cumbersome to the last degree. An accoun* 

 of the uses to which these teeth are applied, and the manner of 

 choosing the best ivory, belongs rather to a history of the arts 

 than of nature. 



This animal is equally singular in other parts of its conforma- 

 tion ; the lips and the tongue in other creatures serve to suck up 

 and direct their drink or their food ; but in the elephant they are 

 totally inconvenient for such purposes ; and it not only gathers 

 its food with its trunk, but supplies itself with water by the 

 same means. When it eats hay, as I have seen it frequently, it 

 takes up a small wisp of it with the trunk, turns and shapes it 

 with that instrument for some time, and then directs it into the 

 mouth, where it is chewed by the great grinding teeth, that are 

 large in proportion to the bulk of the animal. This pacquet, 

 when chewed, is swallowed, and never luminated again, as in 

 cows or sheep, the stomach and intestines of this creature more 

 resembling those of a horse. Its manner of drinking is equally 

 extraordinary. For this purpose the elephant dips the end of 

 its trunk into the water, and sucks up just as much as fills that 

 great fleshy tube completely. It then lifts up its head with the 

 trunk fidl, and turning the point into its mouth, as if it intended 

 to swallow trunk and all, it drives the point below the opening 

 of the windpipe. The trunk being in this position, and still 

 full of water, the elephant then blows strongly into it at the 

 other end, which forces the water it contains into the throat ; 

 down which it is heard to pour with a loud gurgling noise, which 

 contimies till the whole is blown down. From this manner of 

 1 See Mr Daiibentoii's deseriptiim of the skeleton of this aiiimaL 



