sorbed. From tlie beginning of the sixth to the end of the niutli 

 year the fourth set of grinders come forward to supply the gra- 

 dual waste of the third set. Id this manner to the end of life 

 the elephant obtains a set of new teeth as the old ones become 

 unfit for the mastication of his food. The milk grinders consist 

 each of four teeth or laminae, the second set of grinders of eight 

 or nine laminte, the third set of twelve or thirteen, the fourth 

 set of fifteen, and so on to the seventh or eighth set, when each 

 grinder consists of twenty-two or twenty-throe ; and, it may be 

 added, that each succeeding grinder takes at least a year more than 

 its predecessor to be completed"* Gilchrist's ideas were much 

 less exact than those of the experienced observer just quoted. 

 He tells us that at about eighty years of age the front parts pf the 

 teeth — " eye teeth" — drop from the lower jaw, and that in extreme 

 old age the molar teeth are worn level with the gum. It is evident 

 that for practical purposes but little exact infonnation as to age 

 can be derived from the teeth of the elephant in our present 

 state of knowledge. We must be guided in purchase to an 

 extent by the statements of the seller, endeavouring to confirm 

 them as much as possible by observation of the conditions of ears, 

 trunk, &c. 



Elephants bought for the Commissariatt are to be not less 

 than 15 nor more than 30 years old, and growing elephants are 

 to be measured annually on 1st April in order that the amount 

 of their feed may be regulated in accordance with their size. 

 It seems that elephant dealers are not above suspicion, for 

 Forsyth tells us, though Bengal landowners sell young useful 

 animals "at S<5npur fair, Mahoramedan dealers bring the halt 

 and the blind. A dangerous mankiller reduced to temporary 

 harmlessness by a daily pill of opium and hemp ; Kilndi sores 

 plugged; Sajli&.n cracks packed with tow; sore backs surface- 

 healed ; animals so bedizened with paintj and so fattened with 

 artificial feeding, that it is hard to tell what any one of them 

 would look like if stripped to the bones, space so confined 

 axid crowd so great that you can't get a fair trot. Such are a 

 few traps for the unwary elephant buyer." 



The regulation allowance of food for Government elephants is 



* (Corse, in Brewster's " Edinbuigh Encyclopaedia.'") 

 t ('ommissariat Code, para. 1768 (1682). 



