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SKELETON OF INDIAN ELEPHANT. 



ORDER PROBOSCIDEA (ELEPHANTS). 



Order Proboscidea Antiquity of the Elephant Referred to in the Bible Mentioned in the Apocrypha "War Elephants 

 Their Accoutrements Hannibal's Elephants Elephants amongst the Romans Skull Dentition Vertebrae Odd 

 Delusion about its Legs Proboscis Species THE INDIAN ELEPHANT Size Range Habits Various Modes of 

 Capture Keddah Used as a Labourer or Nurse Sagacity White Elephants THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT Character- 

 isticsRange Habits and Haunts Hunting Pitfalls Aggageers Chasing Elephant-Shooting How the Natives 

 Cut it up FOSSIL ELEPHANTS AND THEIR ALLIES Absurd Stories MAMMOTH How it was first Found Story 

 of the Fourth or Benkendorf's Discovery Range MASTODON DINOTHERIUM. 



THE Elephants, Horses, Rhinoceroses, Tapirs, Coneys, Pigs, and Hippopotami, were all grouped 

 together by the older naturalists under the order of Pachyderms,* or thick-skinned animals provided 

 with hoofs, but not furnished with a complex stomach for rumination, or chewing of the cud. They 

 are now divided into three different orders the Proboscidea, Hyracoidea, and Ungulata which we 

 shall define and describe each in its proper place. 



The order Prosboscidea, or animals possessed of a proboscis, or trunk, consists of two living species, 

 the Indian and African Elephant, and two extinct genera known as Dinotherium and Mastodon. The 

 Elephant, from its large size and its singular sagacity, attracted the attention of man in the earliest 

 times, and was always looked upon with feelings of awe and reverence. At the present time the 

 African savage, in the region of the Congo, compasses its death with the mysterious aid of the medicine- 

 man, according to Mr. Winwood Reade, as well as by the ordinary means of hunting. The animal, in 

 early times, was used both for purposes of war and peace, and figures, at the present time, alike in the 

 gorgeous retinues of Indian princes, and ministers to the more humble and more useful services of the 

 husbandman. The ivory furnished by its tusks was known in the remotest antiquity. The first 



* iraxvs, thick j 6if>iMa, skin. 



