228 ELEPHASTfD^. 



Oed. UNGULATA, L. 



Feet with hoofs instead of claws. 



The feet being used only as supports they have no clavicles, and their 

 fore-arms are constantly in a state of pronation, whence they are reduced 

 to live on vegetables. Their forms and mode of life show much less 

 variety than unguiculated animals. They were divided into two large 

 groups or orders by Cuvier, the non-ruminating, or Pachydermata, and 

 the Ruminautia. More recently they have been divided into several tribes 

 or sub-orders, viz., Prohoscidea, Perissodactyla, and Artiodactyla, the two 

 former, together with one family of the latter, constituting the Pachyder- 

 matous division ; and the remander of the Artiodactyla comprising the 

 ruminating animals. Linnsens divided them into Biiita, Bellua, and Pecora; 

 the former comprising the elephant and rhinoceros ; the Bellua, the horse, 

 the hog and the Hippopotamus ; and the last the ruminants. 



Tribe, Proboscidea, Cuvier, 



This comprises only one family. 



Fam. Elephantid.*;. 



Two large incisive tusks in the upper jaw ; none in the lower jaw : 

 molars large, with the crown elongated ; feet with 5 toes, with nails 

 surrounded by a thick callous skin ; snout elongated into a long prehensile 

 proboscis or trunk ; mammse two, pectoral. 



The cranium of the elephants is much elevated vertically, the inter- 

 maxillary bones being much developed to support the tusks which are 

 sometimes enormous, and curved upwards, and to give origin to some of 

 the mmierous muscles which support the proboscis. This organ, which is 

 flexible in every direction, and endowed with great sensibility, enables the 

 elephant to procure his food from the ground or high trees, sucks up the 

 water he drinks, and conveys it to his throat. The brain occupies but a 

 small space in the huge cranium, which has numerous sinuses or air- 

 cavities extendiog through the frontal, parietal, and temporal bones, even 

 to the occipitals. The nasal bones are so shortened, being pushed up by 

 intermaxillaries, that the nostrils (in the skeleton) are situated in the 

 upper portion of the face, but in the living animal terminate in the end of 

 the proboscis. In a fossil genus when immature, the. lower jaw possesses 



