ORDER PACHYDERMATA. 345 



SUPPLEMENT TO THE ORDER 

 PACHYDERMATA. 



The notice of the Baron in the text, and the specific cha- 

 racters which distinguish the two species, render any 

 further or lengthened description of the Elephant as 

 a genus unnecessary ; and as we propose selecting these 

 animals as a type from which to treat of the mental facul- 

 ties and instincts of the mammiferous class, we shall appro- 

 priate a larger space to our supplementary observations on 

 them, in reference to these particulars, than our limits will 

 generally allow ; a space, however, very inadequate to the 

 importance, extent, and difficulty of the subject. 



It is but lately that the differences between the Asiatic 

 and the African Elephants have been noticed by naturalists. 

 The Baron Cuvier was the first who compared them, and 

 determined their specific characters. 



The Elephant is the largest of existing quadrupeds: its 

 proboscis is an organ of seizing and of touch, of feeling 

 and of respiration, but not of smell. With this it can hold 

 a pole or branch, and strike with tremendous violence, and 

 with this it conveys both food and water to the mouth. The 

 tusks are changed but once during the life of the animal, 

 but the molars change as often as detrition makes it ne- 

 cessary ; they do so, however, not in the ordinary manner, 

 by the new teeth pushing the old up, but by a lateral suc- 

 cession from rear to front. The nasal apertures are not 

 prolonged beyond the bones of the nose, and do not pass 

 through the proboscis, and the lower lip has a very little 

 motion. The shortness of its neck not permitting the animal 

 to lower the mouth to the ground to pasture, it collects the 

 grass and leaves of trees with its proboscis. When it eats, 

 the muscles of the cheeks seem, by a sort of spontaneous 



