LIVING AND EXTINCT ELEPHANTS — THEIR FOOD. 277 



§ XL Food op Living and Extinct Elephants. 



The alimentary habits of the Asiatic Elephant, in the wild 

 and subjugated state, have been so carefully observed, that 

 there is, perhaps, no other pachyderm with which, in this 

 respect, we are better acquainted. But the same cannot be 

 said, of the African species; the details of the vegetable 

 matters which constitute his staple food are only known in 

 a very general way, although it is certain, from the difference 

 of the vegetation of Southern Africa, where he now exists in 

 great force, and of Northern and Western Africa, near the 

 foot of the Atlas, where he abounded within the historical 

 period, that his food must vary within a considerable range 

 of species. The teeth of the Asiatic and African Elephants 

 are so differently modified, and the trees on which they 

 browse are so distinct, that the Asiatic species would pro- 

 bably be distressed for food, where the African finds it in 

 abundance, and vice versa. Both are represented in the fossil 

 state by species having molars constructed more or less after 

 the patterns respectively yielded by them, and I propose to 

 consider how far our knowledge of the former will assist us 

 in speculating regarding the alimentary habits of the latter. 



(a.) Food of the Indian Elephant. — The ' Sal,' or ' Tarai ' 

 Forests, which stretch at the foot of the Himalayahs, from 

 lat. 30°, where the Ganges and Jumna escape from the mom- 

 tains, to the Brahmapootra, embracing a range of several 

 hundred miles, are here selected to furnish the chief illus- 

 trations which I have to adduce. They everywhere abound 

 with Elephants, southwards from lat. 30°, which may be 

 regarded as the extreme northern limit of the habitat of 

 the species at the present day. Forests presenting similar 

 physical characters extend along the continuation of the 

 same range, through Sylhet, Chittagong, Arracan, Pegu, 

 and the Tenasserim provinces, to the point of the Malay 

 Peninsula; they become more and more tropical in their 

 vegetation, and, as a general rule, the Elephants improve in 

 size, form, and vigour, according to their more southern 

 habitat. 



The Sal Forests are densely covered with arboreous forms 

 belonging chiefly to the following Dicotyledonous genera : — 



the case of the Australian Mastodon, as 

 a proof of the remarkable geographical 

 distribution of the Proboscidea, in a 

 communication which he delivered to 

 the British Association at Cambridge, 

 on Oct. 4, entitled, ' On a tooth of 

 Mastodon from the Tertiary marls near 

 Shanghai.' In the subsequent discussion, 



ho frankly abandoned it, in consequence 

 of the doubts then urged regarding its 

 authenticity. As the asserted fact has 

 taken deep root in systematic works, it 

 is still necessary that the refutation 

 here embodied shoxild appear in the 

 records of Science. ( Vide ' Parthenon,' 

 Oct. 11, 1862, p. 754.) 



