424 UNGULATA 
Elephas.\—Dentition: i2, ¢ 8, dm 3, m $=26. The incisors 
variable, but usually of very large size, especially in the male sex, 
directed somewhat outwards, and curved upwards, without enamel 
except on the apex before it is worn. The molars composed of 
numerous flattened enamel-covered plates or ridges of dentine, 
projecting from a common many-rooted base, surrounded and united 
together by cement, and extending straight across the crown, with- 
out (in most forms) any median division into inner and outer 
columns. The number of plates increases from the anterior to the 
posterior molar in regular succession, varying in the different species, 
but the third and fourth (or the last milk-molar and the first true 
molar), and these only, have the same number of ridges, which 
always exceeds five. Premolars nearly always wanting. Skull 
of adult very high and globular. Mandible ending in front in a 
short, deflected, and spout-like symphysis. Vertebre: C 7, D 19- 
21, L 3-4, 8 4, C 26-33. 
The existing species of the genus differ so much that they have 
been referred by some writers to distinct genera ; fossil forms show, 
however, such a transition from the one to the other that it is 
scarcely possible to regard them even as the representatives of 
distinct groups. 
In the well-known Indian or Asiatic Elephant (£. indicus) the 
average number of plates of the six successive molar teeth is 
expressed by the “ridge-formula,” 4, 8, 12, 12, 16, 24. The 
plates are compressed from before backwards, the anterior and 
posterior surfaces (as seen in the worn grinding face of the tooth, 
Fig. 181) being 
nearly parallel. 
Ears of moder- 
ate size. Upper 
margin of the 
end of the pro- 
boscis devel- 
oped into a 
distinct finger- 
Fic. 181.—Grinding surface of a half-worn lower molar of the Indian like process, 
Elephant (Elephas indicus). d, Dentine; e, enamel; c, cement. (From much lon ger 
ne than the lower 
margin. Five nails on the fore feet, and four (occasionally five) on 
the hind feet. 
This species inhabits in a wild state the forest lands of India, 
Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Cochin China, Ceylon, and Sumatra. 
The elephants from the last-named islands, presenting some variations 
from those of the mainland, have been separated under the name of 
F. sumatranus, but the distinction has not been satisfactorily estab- 
1 Linn. Syst. Vat. 12th ed. vol. i. p. 48 (1766). 
