IX THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 22 1 



has hemispheres which are extremely well convoluted ; but they 

 leave the cerebellum entirely uncovered. This suggests a brain 

 which is a gTeat specialisation of a low type. The brain has 

 been particularly compared with that of the Carnivora, with 

 which group the Elephants agree in the characters of the 

 placenta. It is, liowever, always a matter of the very greatest 

 difficulty to compare the brains of mammals belonging to different 

 orders. 



There are but two living species of Elephant, of both of 

 whicli we shall now proceed to give some account. Only a few of 

 the rather numerous fossil forms can be touched upon here. 



The African Elephant, E. africanus, has been sometimes re- 

 feiTcd to a distinct genus or sub-genus, Zoxodon, by reason of the 

 lozenge-shaped areas on the worn grinding- teeth. It lives, as its 

 name denotes, in Africa. This species has a number of external 

 features which enable it to be distinguished from the Oriental 

 Elephant. The head slopes back more, and has not the two 

 rounded bosses which give so wise a countenance to the Indian 

 species. The ears are very much larger The tip of the trunk 

 has a slight triangular projection on both the lower and the upper 

 part of the circumference of the aperture. There are four nails 

 on the fore-feet and three on the hind. As in the Indian form, 

 the toes are all bound together, and do not appear for any part as 

 free digits. A thick pad of fat, etc., makes the animal when 

 alive look as if plantigrade, whereas it is, as a matter of fact, 

 digitigrade. In internal features the most prominent difference 

 from E. indicus is in the molar teeth, which are ridged by much 

 fewer ridges. The outside number for a single tooth in the 

 present species is 10 or 11. In Elephas indicus on the other 

 hand there are as many as 27. 



The African Elephant, thinks Sir Samuel Baker, reaches a 

 height of about 12 feet, and it will be remembered that the 

 notorious " Jumbo '' was found to be 11 feet high at the 

 shoulder. The tusks are found in both sexes, as in the Indian 

 beast, but are relatively larger in the female in the species now 

 under consideration. It is also a rather more active creature, and 

 is more savage ; ■* however it can be tamed, as is shown by several 



^ So convinced are some persons of the untameable character of the African 

 Elephant, that it has even been suggested that the animals with which Hannibal 

 crossed the Alps were not E. africanus, but a now extinct species ! 



