134 TWO YEAKS IN THE JUNGLE. 



the nasal cavity, so that they are filled with air only, and thus, 

 while the skull is of great size, it is very light and buoyant in pro- 

 portion to its bulk. 



In the elephant we see an animal which very strikingly illus- 

 trates the perfect manner in which nature always adapts means to 

 ends to secure the svu"vival of the fittest, even under the most try- 

 ing circumstances. He is possessed of a colossal body and head, 

 joined by a neck so extremely short and thick that the head is al- 

 most a fixture upon the body. He cannot reach down to graze or 

 di'ink, as all long-necked animals do, and so nature has provided 

 him with a wonderful flexible proboscis six feet long, which is at 

 once a powerful arm and hand, a drinking-cup, and a movable nose. 

 The eye is very small indeed, placed far back upon the side of the 

 head, and owing to the shortness of the neck and general unwieldi- 

 ness of the head, the \isual organ is almost a fixture upon his 

 head, and its range of vision exceedingly circumscribed. His hear- 

 ing is by no means acute, his sense of smell is also very deficient, 

 and, taken altogether, he is easily approached in the forest. The 

 most unskilful hunter can easily steal up to within ten feet of an 

 elephant when he is feeding, provided there are no others near to 

 discover him, and were the animal's brain enclosed in the same 

 kind of a skull as that of every other terrestrial mammal, the most 

 bungling hunter — or naturalist — could easily kill half a dozen ele- 

 phants in a day. 



But natvu-e has not left this noble animal at the mercy of un- 

 skilful hunters. Instead of the thin, solid cranium wall which we 

 see in the skulls of nearly all other land quadrupeds, a cranium 

 which can be fractured by a blow or a bullet, thus producing death, 

 a buUet may go crashing through those thin, bony cells, within two 

 inches of the brain itself, and only cause the animal to run away 

 much faster and farther than he otherwise would do. If the ball 

 passes very' close to the brain, the elephant may be stunned or 

 knocked down by the concussion, but if he receives no further treat- 

 ment he will quickly recover, regain his feet, and adios ! — he is off, 

 to recover entirely in a short time and live to a ripe old age, bar- 

 ring more serious accidents. The Ceylon Observer once gave an 

 account of the death of a fine old male elephant near Trincomalee, 

 whose skull showed the marks of twenty-three bullets, which had 

 from year to year been fired into it by British naval officers hunt- 

 ing in that vicinity while their ships lay in the harbor. And yet 

 the old fellow's serenity had not been distm'bed sufficiently to 



