OSSEOUS SYSTEM OF MAMMALIA. 



39 



19 



is truly warranted. Though large and extensive in carnivorous animals, 

 they are ordinarily far more so in the graminivorous races. In some va- 

 rieties of the Goat, the skull, if regarded without reference to the frontal 

 sinuses, would appear to have a prominent forehead, the index of a deve- 

 loped brain ; but the prominence is deceptive, being merely that of the 

 tabular covering of these sinuses, which are upwards of an inch in depth ; 



divided from each other, and again 

 subdivided by very thin parti- 

 tions ; while, at the same time, 

 they extend not only over the 

 whole front of the skull, but are 

 continued, into the osseous core of 

 the horns,* for fully three parts of 

 its length. The same arrangement 

 of the frontal sinuses prevails, also, 

 in the Ox. (See fig. 19, the section 

 of a skull of the Ox, in which the extent of these sinuses is displayed). 



Of all quadrupeds, however, there is none which has the frontal 

 sinuses developed to the great extent which is found in the Elephant : 

 it is from these that the forehead in this animal acquires its remark- 

 able advancement and elevation. Divided into numerous cells of an 

 irregular structure, they occupy the front and top of the skull ; and, 

 from their 1 great depth, give the head a bold and imposing appearance, 

 which is altogether fallacious. But, though the external table of the 

 frontal bone (here single), by which they are covered, is thin, and easily 

 20 broken, there is no probability of killing the 



Elephant by aiming at its forehead ; for the 

 true cavity of the skull, occupied by the brain, 

 is of comparatively small extent, and seated 

 far back, a situation produced not only by 

 the enormous extent of the frontal sinuses, 

 but also resulting from the space taken up 

 by the alveolar processes, in which the roots 

 of the ponderous tusks are so deeply im- 

 bedded. It was from ignorance of these 

 facts that so great a difficulty occurred in 

 destroying the Elephant at Exeter 'Change, a 

 few years since ; the painful details of which are, 

 no doubt, fresh in the memory of most of our 



readers. An Elephant-hunter would certainly have killed the animal at a 

 single shot. The annexed sketch (fig. 20) represents the developed state 



* The osseous core, or support, of the horny sheath in the Ox, Antelope, Sheep, and Goat, is a mere 

 process of the frontal bone. 



