CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 11. PACHYDERM ATA. 633 



They appeared to have opened up these paths with great judgment, always taking the best and 

 shortest cut to the next open savannah, or ford of the river, and in this way their labors were of 

 the greatest use to us by pioneering our route through a most intricate country, never yet trav- 

 ersed by a wheel carriage, and great part of it, indeed, not easily accessible, even on horseback. 

 In such places the great bull elephant always marches in the van, bursting through the jungle as 

 a bullock would through a field of hops, treading down the brushwood, and breaking off with his 

 proboscis the larger branches that obstruct the passage, while the females and younger part of 

 the herd follow in his wake. 



"Among the mimosa-trees sprinkled over the meadows, or lower bottoms, the traces of their 

 operations were not less apparent. Immense numbers of these trees had been torn out of the 

 ground and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease 

 on the juicy roots, which form a favorite part of their food. I observe. 1 that in numerous in- 

 stances, when the trees were of considerable size, the elephant had employed one of his tu.-ks 

 exactly as we would use a crowbar, thrusting it under the roots to loosen their hold of the earth, 

 before he attempted to tear them up with his proboscis. Many of the larger mimosas had resisted 

 all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rains, when the soil is soft and loose, that they 

 can successfully attempt this operation." 



Captain Harris gives us the following affecting incident, which took place the day after a suc- 

 cessful hunt: u Xot an elephant was to be seen on the ground that was yesterday teeming with 

 them, but on reaching the glen which had been the scene of our exploits, a calf, ?bout three and 

 a half feet high, walked forth from a bush, and saluted us with its mournful, piping notes. We 

 had observed the unhappy little wretch hovering about its mother after she fell, and, having prob- 

 ably been unable to overtake the herd, it had passed a dreary night in the wood. Entwining its 

 little proboscis about our legs, the sagacious creature, after demonstrating its delight in our arri- 

 val by a thousand ungainly antics, accompanied the party to the body of its dam, which, swollen 

 to an enormous size, was surrounded by an inquest of vultures. The conduct of the quaint little 

 calf now became quite affecting, and elicited the sympathy of every one. It ran round its mother's 

 corse with touching demonstrations of grief, piping sorrowfully, and vainly attempting to raise 

 her with its tiny trunk. At length, the miniature elephant, finding that its mother heeded not 

 its caresses, voluntarily followed our party to the wagons, where it was received with shouts of 

 welcome from the people, and a band of all sorts of melody from the cattle. It died, however, in 

 spite of every care, in the course of a few days, as did two others, much older, that we subse- 

 quently captured." 



We have already alluded to the murderous slaughter of elephants in Africa by other hunters, 

 and especially by Cummings. All these seem to have been surpassed, however, by a Frenchman 

 named Delegorgue, who, with two negro attendants, met a herd consisting of eleven of these ani- 

 mals and killed every one of them. They fell so piled on one another as to constitute a strange, 

 grotesque heap, which, says the narrator, so excited the risible faculties of the party as moment- 

 arily to deprive them of strength. If man is the greatest of destroyers, he is also the only one 

 that laughs over his fallen prey, unless, indeed, it may be the hyena. 



Fossil Proboscidians.- — The fossil remains of several species of Proboscidiens are found, irany 

 of them in high northern latitudes, where no animals of this kind now exist. Bones and tusks 

 of elephants or mastodons occur throughout Russia, and more particularly in Eastern Siberia and 

 the arctic marshes. The tusks are very numerous, and in so high a state of preservation that 

 they form an article of commerce, and are employed in the same works as what may be termed 

 the living ivory of Asia and Africa, though the fossil trunks fetch an inferior price. Siberian 

 fossil ivory forms the principal material on which the Russian ivory-turner works. The tusks 

 most abound in the Laichovian Isles and on the shores of the Frozen Sea, ami the best are found 

 in the countries near the arctic circle, and in the most eastern regions, where the soil in the vcrj 

 short summer is thawed only at the surface; in some years not, at all. In. 1799 a Tungusian 

 named Schumachoff, who generally went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the 

 fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks of the 

 Lake Oncoul, and had embarked to seek along the coasts for tusks, called horn> by the people of 

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