182 CASSELL'S POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



seen in the same peninsula, and tlmt all the family of its discoverer had died soon afterwards. It was, 

 then-tore, unanimously considered as an augury of future calamity, and Sclmrnachoff was so much 

 alarmed that he became seriously ill ; but becoming convalescent, his first idea was the profit he might 

 obtain by Helling the tusks of the animal, which were of extraordinary size and beauty. He ordered 

 that tin- plaer where the creature was found should be carefully concealed, and that trustworthy 

 jiooplc might watch, that the treasure might not be carried off. 



The animal proved to be a mammoth, and seven years after its discovery Schumachoff found it 

 still in the same place, but sadly mutilated. So fresh was its flesh, that the inhabitants of Jakataski fed 

 their dogs with it ; and the white bears, gluttons, wolves, and foxes, had left, by their footmarks around 

 it, proofs that they had held a banquet there. The skeleton, almost fleshless, was complete, with the 

 exception of one fore leg. The ligaments and portions of the skin held together the vertebral column, 

 one shoulder-blade, the haunch bones, and the other extremities. A dry skin covered the head, and 

 one well-preserved ear was still tufted with hair. The apex of the lower lip had been gnawed away ; 

 the upper lip and proboscis had been devoured, and the molar teeth were visible. In the skull was the 

 brain, but it was very dry. Only twenty-eight or thirty vertebrae of the tail remained ; but a fore foot 

 and a hind foot were covered with skin, and the sole remained attached. 



A part of the skin and some of the hair were sent to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented it to the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, and it is still to be seen in their museum. Of such extraordinary weight was 

 this entire covering that ten persons found it a difficult task to transport it to the shore. The hair 

 was entirely separated from the skin, excepting in one very small part, where it remained firmly 

 attached. It consisted of two sorts, common hair and bristles, and of each there were several varieties, 

 differing in length and thickness. The colour of the skin was the dull black of the living elephants. 

 The skeleton, with the tusks, is mounted in the museum of the Petropolitan Academy at St. 

 Petersburg. 



The only living genus of Proboscideans is the Elephant, which we now proceed to consider. 



THE ELEPHANT.* 

 MONTGOMERY says : 



" Calm amid scenes of havoc, >n his own 

 Huge strength impregnable, the elephant 

 Offendeth none, but leads a quiet life 

 Among his own contemporary trees, 

 Till Nature lays him gently down to rest 

 Beneath the palm, which he was wont to make 

 His prop in slumber; there his relics lie 

 Longer than life itself had dwelt within them. 

 Bees in the ample hollow of his skull 

 Pile their wax citadels, and store their honey; 



Thence sally forth to forage through the fields, 

 And swarm in emigrating legions thence: 

 There, little burrowing animals throw up 

 Hillocks beneath the overarching ribs; 

 While birds, within the spinal labyrinth 

 Contrive their nests : So wandering Arabs pitch 

 Their tents amid Palmyra's palaces ; 

 So Greek and Roman peasants build their huts 

 Beneath the shadows of the Parthenon, 

 Or on the ruins of the Capitol." 



And this is true, unless he is destroyed by man. The elephant, from the simple structure of his 

 stomach and intestines, which require frequent supplies from the great quantity of food consumed for 

 his ordinary support from the waste which is necessarily produced by the weight and bulk of his 

 body and from the conformation by which he is fitted to move on level ground is evidently the 

 inliabitant of rich and luxuriant plains, where grass aboun'ds, and the woods yield him their succu- 

 lent shoots. 



If we go back, desirous to trace the earliest knowledge of the elephant, we are lost in traditions 

 referring to heroes or kings whose names survive, but of whose acts, however famous, no record 

 remains. Thus, Bacchus, one of the conquerors of India, is said to have been the first that yoked the 

 elephant to a car ; and, according to Lucian, he brought not only gems, but the bones of elephants 

 from Ethiopia, which were deposited in the temple of Dea-Syria. 



Throughout the Iliad of Homer, ivory is but once mentioned, and that notice occurs in the 

 description of the bit of a horse's bridle, belonging to a Trojan. But in the Odyssey, the palace of 

 M'-n- I UK. utter his return from his voyages in Egypt and Phoenicia, is enriched with ornaments of 



* Elephas. 



