256 WILD ANIMALS. 



to toucli the ground, and it is therefore dependent on the 

 tapering proboscis or trunk, which is its most striking feature. 

 This wonderfully-constructed appendage is a prolongation of the 

 nose or upper lip, and is generally between six and seven feet in 

 length. With it the animal can readily reach any article it requires, 

 either from the ground or from a height above the head, for the 

 extremity, besides having the two openings of the nostrils through 

 which the animal can breathe when necessary, is furnished with a 

 finger and thumb arrangement, a small upper prolongation, which 

 opens from or shuts on to an under tubercle, the pressure 

 firmly holding anything it grasps, or the trunk can be wound 

 round an article too large to be lifted in this way, and in the coil 

 or folds the grip is of the most powerful kind. The trunk is 

 endowed with such an exquisite sense of touch that, even without 

 the aid of the eye, it can quickly find the most minute article; 

 indeed, so sensitive is it, that in cases where animals become blind 

 it enables them to move about and travel without much difficulty 

 and at a considerable pace, for they can feel their way with the 

 trunk and avoid all obstacles, so promptly can any little impedi- 

 ment or irregularity in the ground be detected. 



This trunk is composed of a mass of interlacing muscles, 

 marvellously arranged, numbering, Cuvier estimates, nearly forty 

 thousand. Some running longitudinally and others radiating 

 from the centre to the circumference, all so beautifully combined 

 and adjusted to give it flexibility and strength, enabling it do be 

 expanded or contracted, or wielded with that diversity of motion, 

 and used in those manifold ways that must excite amazement 

 when first seen, and from time immemorial have made the 

 elephant's trunk an object of wonder and admiration. Some 

 have described it as " the elephant's hand," others as " the snake 

 hand," and the poor Kaffirs regard it with such superstitious awe, 

 that when they kill an elephant they solemnly inter the trunk. 

 It does, in fact, perform many of the offices of the hand ; all the 

 animal's food is lifted by it and conveyed to the mouth, the water 

 by which its thirst is quenched, or that it stores up in that 

 interior cistern it possesses, is all first sucked up into the trunk, 

 which when filled is discharged into the mouth. 



