THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
“which give so wise a countenance to the Indian species’; 
finally, the tip of the trunk has a slight triangular projection on 
its under as well as its upper side, —two “‘fingers” instead of one. 
Great diversity exists, however, among African elephants, and it is not 
yet determinable whether the distinctions are worthy of specific rank or 
not. Dr. Paul Matschie,’’? one of the foremost. authorities on African 
mammals, has separated them into four kinds, distinguished prominently 
by the size and shape of the ears. One of these varieties (or species) is a 
dwarf race, only four or five feet tall when full grown, inhabiting West 
Africa north of the lower Kongo. Not much is known of it, but a speci- 
men has been living in the New York Zoédlogical Park since July, 1905. 
It is interesting to note that it seems to resemble most the dwarf elephants 
(fossil) of Malta and eastward; and also that it comes from the same 
region as the pygmy hippopotamus. 
This animal represents the last of a race with a long 
fossil history in Europe, and is a comparatively recent immi- 
grant into Africa, where, when white men first began to ex- 
plore the continent, it ranged everywhere outside the deserts. 
It had disappeared south of the Zambezi, and near the coast, 
except as to a few small preserved herds, before the nineteenth 
century closed; but throughout the vast forests and swamps 
between the Nile sources and the lower Kongo, this elephant 
still exists in countless thousands, and is little disturbed. 
There it is likely to remain plentiful for a long time to come, 
as European governments have agreed upon various laws, 
including a close season for females, and an export duty on 
the tusks, by which it is hoped to prevent rapid extermination. 
Indeed, in many parts elephants are a bar to the civilization of 
the natives, at least by means of agriculture, by destroying plan- 
tations in a way the negroes are powerless to prevent. 
“The most remarkable elephant country,” says Ewart Scott Grogan, in 
Everybody's Magazine for April, 1901, ‘fis undoubtedly Toro, and all the 
lower slopes of the Mountains of the Moon (Ruwenzori on the maps, but 
known to the natives as Runzonvoro). Here the prevailing feature is 
undulating hills covered with elephant grass (a coarse cane brake growing 
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