ON THE BONES OF ELEPHANTS. 179 



lentln and elsewhere, is such, that one cannot distinguish any thing 

 precise in it, not even the species to which it belongs. 



That of Patrick Blair* belongs, it is true, to the Indian species ; but 

 besides having been done after a young animal whose epiphyses were 

 not soldered (soudees), it is very badly designed. The scapulas are re- 

 versed in it; six toes have been given to the left forefoot, and only four 

 to the hind feet, &c. 



Those of Perraultf, and of DaubentonJ, both taken from a skeleton, 

 still preserved, belong to the African species. The first is well enough, 

 but the head is represented in it too small ; the second is at most 

 passable. 



That of Camper§, as that of Blair, is of the Indian species ; but 

 though better designed than the others, it is done from a very young 

 animal, which had not acquired all its form, and from which the liga- 

 ments had not been removed. It therefore became necessary for me 

 to take up this subject entirely, and to describe first of all the oste- 

 ology of living elephants. 



The opportunities which I have had of dissecting three of these 

 animfds, and of seeing several of their skeletons, have supplied me 

 with valuable data for this purpose : the figure from a large design, 

 which I got made under my own inspection, with great care, by M. 

 Huet, will be seen, I trust, with considerable pleasure (pi. 7, Jiff. 1) ; 

 the figure of a young head, where all the sutures are still marked, 

 which I got drawn in London in M. Brookes' splendid cabinet of 

 com; arative anatomy (pi. 18, Jiff. 1 and 2), and that of an adult head, 

 which I had observed in the same city in the cabinet of the India Com- 

 pany, and of which M. Clift, conservator of the Museum of the Col- 

 lege of Surgeons, had the kindness to make me a drawing (^pL 18, Jig. 

 4). The extracts from my observations regarding the growth of 

 teeth, and their structure, will be received with equal interest ; and I 

 must here observe, that necessary as this is in the history of fossils, it 

 possesses still more general importance in another point of view: and it 

 is capable of illustrating the history of the teeth in man and animals, 

 inasmuch as the size of the elephants' teeth renders quite visible 

 things which are rather difi[icult to be distinguished in the other 

 species. 



It is after these preliminary researches on the osteology of living 

 elephants, and when we shall have compared their different species 

 together, that we shall be enabled to devote ourselves with certainty 

 to the examination of the fossil bones of the same genus. 



* Transact. Phil. t. xxvii., No. 326, June 1710, pi. 11. 



•J- Mem. pour servir a I'Hist. des An., llle partie. pi. xxiii. EUe a paru en 1734. 

 X Hist. Nat., in 4to. torn, xi, pi, iv. 



§ Descript. Anat. d'un Elephant, pi. xvii, fig. 1, et dans ses GEuvres, trad, fr. atlas 

 pi. xxiv, fig. 1. 



