346 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



action, to push the food between the teeth for trituration. 

 Sight and hearing are acute, though the eyes are small, 

 compared with the enormous head ; smell however appears 

 to be the most perfect of the senses of these animals : be- 

 fore death they usually discharge a considerable quantity 

 of aqueous liquid through the proboscis. 



The Asiatic Elephant is distinguished from its African 

 congener, principally by the character of the teeth already 

 noticed in the text ; the head moreover is oblong, the fore- 

 head concave, and the ears do not descend lower than the 

 neck. This species is found in the whole of Southern India, 

 and in the neighbouring islands. Though so extensively 

 employed by man, it can hardly be considered a domestic 

 animal, as it is not bred in captivity ; but when a fresh 

 supply is wanted for general purposes, they are hunted or 

 rather sought for in their sequestered retreat, and after 

 being captured, are quickly reduced to servitude. Taking 

 and taming wild elephants is an affair of great moment in 

 India, a description of which, however amusing, we feel 

 constrained to forego. 



A strong Elephant can carry 2000 pounds weight, and 

 can travel without difficulty fifty miies in a day ; in long 

 marches, however, they become very tender-footed, as may 

 be seen by their gait, and by their feeling with the pro- 

 boscis on the ground where they are about to tread for a 

 footfall without stones or sharp rocks, otherwise they are 

 very nimble for their bulk, walk up and down footways into 

 ravines where camels cannot pass, and where horses find 

 difficulty. 



The period of gestation is twenty months ; the new-born 

 Elephant is about three feet long, and all its senses are 

 perfect : it sucks with the mouth and not with the proboscis, 

 turning the latter back in that operation. Lactation con- 

 tinues nearly two years, and between fifteen and twenty 



