2G8 



EXISTING INDIAN ELEPHANT. 



have been imported from Ceylon into Bengal. I will men- 

 tion in the sequel the reasons, founded upon many years' 

 residence there, why I consider the assumption to be in the 

 highest degree improbable. It is rare to find the skeleton of 

 an Asiatic Elephant in England, the pedigree of which is so 

 well authenticated as to be beyond conjectures of this kind. 

 But there is one in London, the antecedents of which are well 

 known, being the skeleton of the celebrated male Elephant, 

 ' Choonee,' preserved in the Museum of the College of Sur- 

 geons. The young animal was imported from Bengal in the 

 year 1810, on board the E. I. C. ship ' Astell,' by Captain 

 Hay ; ' and in 1826 it was shot, in the menagerie at Exeter 

 Exchange, in consequence of its violence from sexual ex- 

 citement. It bore an Indian name, ' Choonee,' and on the 

 occasion of its slaughter it obeyed the word of command to 

 lie down given to it by its English keeper, in the language 

 of Hindostan. All the antecedents are here consistent in 

 proof that the animal was of a Bengal stock. I have exa- 

 mined the skeleton closely, and find that it has 7 cervical, 

 20 dorsal, 3 lumbar, 4 sacral vertebrae, and 20 pairs of ribs. 

 The last pair have been lost, or omitted in mounting the 

 skeleton. The twentieth dorsal vertebra presents costal ar- 

 ticular cups, which are unsymmetrical and small : that on 

 the right side not much exceeding the size of a silver six- 

 pence. But the vertebra is distinctly present. This case, 

 coupled with the Duvaucel skeleton in the ' Jardin des 

 Plantes,' seems to establish, without searching for others, 

 that the Continental Elephant of Northern India varies in 

 the number of its dorsal vertebrse from 19 to 20, as the 

 African varies from 20 to 21. 2 



The hypothesis entertained by Professor Schlegel, upon 

 the statement of Diard, that Ceylon Elephants are frequently 

 imported into Bengal is, I am satisfied, untenable. Under 

 the pressure of the Great Mutiny of 1858, the Indian Govern- 

 ment brought Elephants by sea from Pegu and the adjoining 

 Tenasserim provinces to Calcutta, but none from Ceylon. 

 The occurrence up to that time was so rare there that the 



1 Griffith's 'Animal Kingdom,' vol. 

 iii. p. 3*8 ; and Hone's ' Every-Day 

 Book. &c.' Vol. ii. p. 322. 



2 The ingenious view advanced by 

 Prof. Schlegel regarding the inverse re- 

 lation between the number of lamina in 

 the molars and the number of dorsal 

 vertebrae in the different species {supra, 

 p. 263), does not appear to be tenable 

 against the evidence adduced above, of 

 the numerical variability in the living 

 species. Nor can I assent to the infer- 



ence founded upon it, that the ' Mastc - 

 dons form not a diverging, but a parallel 

 series with the Elephants.' The Indian 

 fossil species, which have been ranged 

 under the designation of Stegodon, esta- 

 blish, through their molar teeth, a mani- 

 fest and nearly unbroken passage from 

 the Mastodons into the true Elephants. 

 [Vide Quart. Journ. Geol. Society, 1857, 

 vol. xiii. p. 314, and antca, pp. 9 and 82. 

 —Ei).] 



