VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 56l 



sort of scab, in many places resembling old warts, deeply jagged, and the 

 carneoas fibres of the muscles of beef when much boiled and transversely cut, 

 but of a dirty tawny colour. These scabs, if they may be so called, both 

 slit and look like short pieces of whale-bone; they adhered so firmly to the 

 cuticula, that they could not be plucked from it, nor the parts of which they 

 consisted (though they were much divided) from one another, without tearing 

 it, and yet the cuticula was very tough and thick. This is very well expressed, 

 and answers exactly to what I find in this subject. He goes on, and says : 

 The length of these scabs in some places was above 4- or 4-, but in other places 

 not above ^ or -^i^ of an inch. The cause of which difference, he takes to 

 be the elephant's wearing, by rubbing or lying, some parts of them, while 

 others were slightly, or not at all worn. The scabs of our subject were not 

 so long; for as the deepest I could find upon the cuticula was not above -^, 

 so the thinnest was less than -fV of an inch. He says, he could find but very 

 few hairs without this scab, but many within, and even with it. The elephant's 

 inclination to itch, and to rub himself against whatever came in his way, kept 

 those hairs that were even with the outside of the scab, from appearing of any 

 considerable length. The hardness of the scab, by keeping the roots of the 

 hairs fast, very much contributed to their wearing on the outside, as well as 

 to their preservation on that within. In our subject the hairs are every where 

 pretty long, some 2, some 3 inches; others, in places most subject to rubbing, 

 but 1 or -i- inch, though indeed not so numerous as I find; and there are 

 passages for them through the cuticula. 1 know not what the doctor means 

 by distinguishing between those found in the cutis, and those in the cuticula, 

 since I am convinced that all arise from the cutis, and penetrate the cuticula. 

 They are indeed black, and many of them stifFer and thicker than the bristles 

 in a hog. Some have taken the cutis to be nothing but a certain crust, 

 formed of several mucilaginous particles, covering the cutis, &c. in the 

 uterus; which after the foetus is come to maturity, is condensed and formed 

 into a skin, such as we see mucilages and poultices have, when after boiling 

 they are exposed to the air : others suppose that the cuticula, as well as cutis, 

 consists of a congeries of membranous fibres, intermixed with a great many 

 capillaries, and endued with pores for perspiration: and some anatomists assert, 

 that they have injected these cutaneous vessels in the cuticula of a foetus, 

 as well as in the cutis: though when the animal is more adult, these capillaries 

 escape the view not only of the naked eye, but even the microscope. That 

 this has been the structure of the cuticula in this animal, is most plain and 

 obvious; for though I cannot determine its thickness, as Dr. Moulins might 

 have done in a recent one, yet now as it is dry, it seems to be of the thickness 



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