1 82 Anecdotal Natural History. 



they may be, and utterly reckless of their own lives, 

 attempt such a feat. They have been known to 

 catch a lion alive, at the command of their king, but 

 the very idea of taking an adult elephant alive would 

 not have entered the head of Chaka himself. 



Now, both the Agageers and the Zulus are of a much 

 higher type than the negro, and it is therefore not at 

 all wonderful that the negro cannot tame the elephant 

 when tribes which are far superior to him fail to do so. 



In general formation, both species very nearly 

 resemble each other, and if the skull were removed, 

 it would not be easy to decide whether the rest of the 

 skeleton belonged to the African or Asiatic species. 

 The form of the head is, however, very different, 

 especially in the living animal. 



In the first place, the enormous comparative size 

 of the ears in the African species renders it so con- 

 spicuous that even when the animal is at rest and 

 the ears are pressed closely against the head, there 

 is no possibility of mistaking one species for the 

 other. These ears, however, are best seen from 

 the front, when the elephant is excited. In such a 

 case, they stand out boldly on each side, looking like 

 a pair of huge black wings. 



Looking at the two species in profile, it is easy to see 

 that the forehead of the African is convex, while that 

 of the Asiatic is concave. Looking at them from the 

 front, the head of the African narrows below the 

 eyes, and then widens again, very much like that of 

 the hippopotamus. 



Its form is due to the manner in which the tusks 

 are set in their sockets. 



In the Indian species, the sockets run nearly 

 parallel to each other, so that the skull is of tolerably 

 equal width. 



Both species have the peculiarity that if, when 



