ELEPHANTS. 259 



change alluded to. In the "Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Rdyal Society" for 1799, there is an able paper on the elephant 

 by Mr. Corse, accompanied by a number of plates, and he seems to 

 have made a close and careful study of the teeth. He writes : "A 

 young elephant shed one of his milk tusks on the 6th November, 

 1790, when near thirteen months old, and the other on the 27th 

 December, when above fourteen months old, they were merely two 

 black-coloured stumps, when shed, but two months afterwards the 

 permanent ones cut the gum. Another young elephant did not shed 

 his milk tusks till he was sixteen months old; which proves that 

 there is considerable variety in the time at which this happens." 

 This, Mr. Sanderson says, is incorrect, and if the skull does show 

 at one period the milk teeth and the tusks (which fact is visible 

 in one of the skulls in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons in London), that the desiduous teeth are not shed, 

 but are absorbed in the gum. The tusks continue to grow 

 during the animal's lifetime, and the strength required to 

 sustain such enormous adjuncts can be imagined when it is 

 remembered that they frequently weigh over sixty pounds, and 

 occasionally considerably over two hundred pounds. Mr. Oswell 

 killed an African elephant whose tusks weighed two hundred and 

 twenty-four pounds, and near the head they measured twenty-three 

 inches in circumference, their length being only one inch short of 

 eight feet. Gordon Cumming shot one whose tusks were ten feet 

 nine inches in length along the curve, their weight being over one 

 hundred and seventy-three pounds. There are also numerous 

 instances recorded in which these sizes and weights have been 

 considerably exceeded. The greatest weight, however, known to 

 modern times is that of a tusk which was sold in Amsterdam some 

 time age, for it turned the scale at three hundred and fifty pounds. 

 Think for a minute of the strength required to carry such a 

 weight, and in doing so remember that although a considerable 

 portion of the tusk is embedded in the jaw and runs up into bone 

 sockets to the forehead, yet the greater and weightier portion stands 

 out unsupported from the head. 



From the Ceylon species being nearly always tuskless and 

 not in any way evincing the want of them. Sir Emerson 



s 2 



