ii6 MAMMALIA. BRUT A. Elephant. 



The male difcharges his urine backwards ; and the female has to lie on her back in copulation, and 

 goes a year with young. The young fucks the mother by means of its lips applied to the teats, not 

 by the trunk. 



This is the largeft of all the race of quadrupeds, fome haying been found which weighed four 

 thoufand five hundred pounds. It carries vaft loads on the back, fometimes even houfes, and is 

 guided by a keeper, named Cornack in the eaft, who rides on the animal's neck. He marches on with 

 a tolerably quick pace, and fwims with great dexterity : Is armed, and employed in war, by the In- 

 dians; and, of old, was ufed in the fame way by the Romans, being armed with crooked fcythes ; 

 but, fince the invention of gun-powder, this animal has become greatly lefs proper for the purpofes 

 of war.. When exceedingly furious, and dangeroufly ungovernable, they are readily killed by means 

 • of a fmall wound, between the firft and fecond vertebrae of the neck, which, penetrating to the fpinal 

 marrow, inftantly deprives them of motion. The body is afh coloured, feldom reddifh or white, 

 having only a few fcattered hairs. The £kin is exceedingly thick, hard, and tough, yet may be pier- 

 ced by a muiket ball, and is even fenfible to the punctures of flies. The- eyes are fmall ; the tufks, 

 which are only in the upper jaw, are ftretched out from the mouth to a great length, refembling 

 horns, and are marked with fibrous grains ; thefe- are the ivory of the fhops, and are often fo large 

 that each weighs a hundred and fifty pounds ; the ears are very large, broad, long, pendulous, and 

 fomewhat notched, or dentated ; the head is large and clumfy, and the neck is fhort ; the female has 

 two fmall dugs near the breaft, a little behind the fore legs ; the knees, contrary to vulgar opinion, 

 are flexible ; the feet are covered with a very tough and thick fkin, which may be ftriped off entire, 

 like the hoof of a horfe; from which circumftance the animal might, with no great impropriety, have 

 been arranged under the order of Belluae ; although, as the feet have the appearance of claws or 

 Kails, five on each fore foot, and- four on each behind, it feemed more proper to arrange him in this 

 order, more efpecially as the female has two dugs placed in the axillae, or arm-pits, as they may be 

 called. 



The bones of Elephants have very frequently been found under ground in the temperate, nay even- 

 In the frigid. Zones, and in America. Vide Pallas, Nov.-com. Petrop. xiii. & xvii. Merk, fur les 

 os folTiles d'Elephans et de Rhinoceros, &c. Darmft, 1786, 4. Lettres 1. — 3. 



^65 2. American Elephant. — Elephas americanus. 



In America, on the banks of the Ohio, are found, feveral feet below the furface, in a marfhy place 

 called Big-bone-fwamp, great munbers of tufks and grinders, fuppofed by many to belong to the Ele- 

 phant : But the grinders are totally different, being covered uniformly with enamel, and furnifhed 

 with a double ro.w of high conic proceffes, like thofe of carnivorous animals ; whereas thofe of the 

 Elephant are compofed of alternate perpendicular layers of bone and enamel, and are ribbed tranf- 

 verfely on their upper furfaces, like thofe of graminivorous quadrupeds : Hence the fpecies muft be 

 entirely different ; and Mr Pennant has chofen to fuppofe that they have belonged to an unknwn fpe- 

 cies of this genus, which he names the American Elephant. Hift. of Quad. n. 71. Thefe teeth and 

 bones are likewife found in Peru and BrafiL Mr Pennant and Dr Gmelin affert, from various au- 

 thorities, that the foffile bones and teeth, fo often found in. Siberia, muft be referred to the true Ele- 

 phant -, and various hypothefes have been devifed, to explain in what manner this inhabitant of the 

 Torrid Zone fhould have wandered to the fixtieth degree of north latitude for a grave. Where fuch 

 great authorities are on one fide, my feeble voice will fcarcely be heard on the other ; but I can fafe- 



