666 ZOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN. 
AFRICAN ELEPHANT HEAD. 
Loaned by Samuel Thorne, Esq. 
double satisfaction that it will be found duly in- 
stalled when the Collection is first shown to the 
members of the Zoological Society, and to 
It will play an 
important part in hastening the day when a 
special building will be provided for the heads 
and horns, in order that the millions of visitors 
American sportsmen generally. 
to the Park may have free access to a collec- 
tion that certainly has provoked much curiosity. 
The ‘Tjader elephant head is assuredly one of 
the most perfectly and beautifully mounted ele- 
phant heads that we have ever seen. It is to 
be borne in mind that the taxidermist, Mr. Lang, 
saw the animal shot, and it was he who photo- 
graphed it, measured it, skinned it, and pre- 
served the skin in the field. The anatomy of 
the head has been reproduced with marvelous 
fidelity, and the specimen is even more true to 
life than if the head had been cut off the animal 
and hung in the flesh upon the wall. The pe- 
culiar reddish-brown color of the skin is evi- 
dently due to the color of the ground on which 
the animal lived. Because of the industry and 
persistence with which elephants cover them- 
selves with dust, to keep off insects, every ele- 
phant is bound to partake of the color of the 
dust of its environment. The animal measured 
ten feet, four inches, at the should@s. The 
tusks are six feet, nine inches in leilgth, and 
weigh 160 pounds. It rarely happens that a 
mounted elephant is permitted to possess, in a 
museum, such fine tusks as these. Very often 
the tusks are reproduced in plaster, or papier- 
mache. W. T. H. 
