PECULIARITIES OF TEETH OF ELEPHANTS 



141 



Man is remarkable as an exception. In the higher races 

 of men the jaws are shorter than in the lower races, and 

 project but very little beyond the vertical plane of the 

 eyes, whilst the nose projects beyond the lips. Another 

 exception is the elephant. This is most obvious when the 

 prepared bony skull and lower jaw are examined, but can 

 be sufficiently clearly seen in the living animal. The 

 lower jaw and the part of the upper jaw against which it 

 and its grinders play is extraordinarily short and small. 

 The elephant has, in fact, no projecting bony jaw at all, 

 no bony snout, its chin does not project more than that of 

 an old man, and even the part of the upper jaw into which 

 its great tusks are set does not bend forward far from the 

 perpendicular (Fig. 14). 



The elephant (see Fig. 14) has no sign of the six little 

 front teeth (incisors) above and below which we find in 

 the typical dentition and in many living mammals, nor oi 

 the corner teeth (dog-teeth, or canines). In the upper 

 jaw in front there is the one huge tusk on each side, and 

 in the lower jaw no front teeth at all ! Then as to the 

 grinders. In the elephant these are enormous, with many 

 transverse ridges on the elongated crown, and so big that 

 there is only room for one at a time in each half of upper 

 and lower jaw. Six of these succeed one another in each 

 half of each jaw, and correspond (though greatly altered) 

 to six of the seven grinders of the typical dentition. Are 

 there amongst older fossil elephants and animals like 

 elephants any which have an intermediate condition of 

 the teeth, connecting the extremely peculiar teeth of the 



ing the complete number of teeth which the ancestor of pigs, goats, 

 elephants, dogs, tigers, men, and even whales possessed. The re- 

 duction in number and the alteration in the shape of the primitive 

 full set of teeth is referred to in the present chapter on " Elephants,'' 

 and in those on " Vegetarians and their Teeth " (p. 159), and on 

 '' A Strange Extinct Beast " (p. 148). 



