LIFE AND ROCK: 



A COLLECTION OF ZOOLOGICAL AND 

 GEOLOGICAL ESSAYS 



CHAPTER I. 



ELEPHANTS, RECENT AND EXTINCT. 



ASSUREDLY of all the mammals now inhabiting this 

 earth elephants are those most justly entitled to the 

 epithet "antediluvian," since they remind us, far nioi'e 

 vividly than any of their modern contemporaries, of the 

 gigantic extinct mammals of various kinds which flourished 

 in that latest epoch of geological history when man was but 

 a comparatively new comer. A long acquaintance has, 

 indeed, made us so familiar with the appearance of 

 elephants that we are too apt to forget what altogether 

 strange and uncouth creatures they really are. If, however, 

 they had happened to be included among those animals 

 which disappeared from the face of the earth before the 

 historic period, and were known to us solely by their 

 skeletons, there can be no doubt that they would be 

 regarded as among the most remarkable of mammals. 

 Moreover, if elephants were only known to us by their 

 skeletons it would be more than doubtful if we should ever 

 have attained a correct idea of their true form ; since 

 although the conformation of their jaws and teeth would 

 clearly indicate that they must have had some veiy peculiar 

 method of feeding, yet it would have required a very bold, 

 not to say a very imaginative man to have conceived the 

 idea that these creatures were furnished with that unique 

 organ which we term the trunk or proboscis. 



At the present day, it need scarcely be said, there are 

 but two living species of elephants, differing remarkably 

 from one another not only in external characters, but 

 also, as we shall notice later on, in the structure of their 



B 



