HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
a pinch condensed milk alone would be better than 
simple sugar-syrup. 
I gave mv own Sun-birds condensed milk 
along with crushed biscuit and powdered yolk of 
hard-boiled egg, but the cold at sea was too much 
for the Amethyst even in June. Small though my 
success was, as I used it to encourage the impor- 
tation of these birds by others, I can, I think, 
fairly claim to have had, though indirectly, more 
to do with the revival of the importation of Hum- 
ming-birds than most people, as success with Sun- 
birds directly caused this. 
WORLD'S BIGGEST ELEPHANT 
DISCOVERED. 
How an accidental tumble led to the discovery 
of the remains of the largest elephant in the world 
has just come to light. The creature is known in 
scientific circles as "the Chatham Elephant," but 
it was on the outskirts of the little village of Up- 
nor, across the Medway, opposite the dockyard 
town, that the bones of the enormous mammoth 
were unearthed. 
The credit for the discovery belongs to a 
skilled labourer in the dockyard, named Syd Tur- 
ner, who lives at Nelson Terrace, Luton, Chat- 
ham, and to a representative of "Lloyd's Ntws" 
he has given an account of the remarkably for- 
tuitous circumstances under which he found the 
elephant. 
"It was on a Sunday morning' in the latter 
end of August, 1913," he said, "that, whilst on 
one of my rambles in search of ancient stone tools 
and implements and similar objects of archaeolo- 
gical interest, I went to Upnor. The village had 
been very unproductive hitherto from the point 
of view of mv hobby, and had scarce repaid me 
for my walks in the neighbourhood — just a few 
worked stones which constituted slight evidence 
of man's work, and denoted the existence of a 
coarse and rude culture. 
While I was roaming about it came on to rain, 
and I took shelter in the undergrowth which oc- 
curs on the hills there. In so doing I fell into a 
small, shallow trench which had been dug by a 
party of Royal Engineers. The trench was from 
18in. to 2ft. deep, and about 2ft. wide; at some 
points it had fallen in, and weeds were growing 
up everywhere, pointing to the fact thai it had 
been excavated some months previously. 
MISTOOK BONES FOR TREE ROOTS. 
"Well, here I sat down to shelter from the 
rain. I drew out my pipe and lit it, and started 
puffing away, at the same time casually began to 
survey my surroundings. I noticed what appeared 
to be the root of a tree which had been cut through 
on one side of the trench; the same feature was 
visible upon the opposite side. I bent down to 
examine it more closely, and was delighted to find 
that my first: impression was wrong' and that the 
'roots' were, in reality, large bones, some of which 
had been cut in the digging of the trench. 
" It dawned upon me that here were the bones 
and tusk of what was possibly a mammoth ! 
"Remains of these prehistoric monsters, are 
fairly numerous in the Chatham locality, especial- 
ly in the brick earths in the suburb of Luton. 
Many isolated bones and fragments of tusk have 
been found at various times, but as soon as they 
are exposed to the air they crumble away and 
lose their value. It would appear that in the 
earth about Chatham there is some preservative 
which keeps the bones intact as long as they are 
covered, and the greatest caution is necessary if 
they are to be brought out intact. 
" I managed to dig up one of the bones and 
took it home. Several of my friends to whom I 
showed it expressed the opinion that it belonged 
to some huge animal now extinct. I did 1 not re- 
veal the precise spot where I had discovered it, 
and I wrote to a number of institutions, finally 
getting into touch with the authorities of the 
Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 
The latter immediately invited me to send up to 
them for inspection the bone I had in my posses- 
sion. 
" I complied, and in due course received an 
intimation from them that it was one of the toe 
bones, of a mammoth, and they asked me if there 
were much more of it where I had excavated this 
relic. Without disclosing the spot where the bones 
lay I replied to all their questions. 
"After a lengthy correspondence, it was ar- 
ranged that I should meet Dr. C. W. Andrews, of 
the Museum, and take him to the scene. On Nov- 
ember 3rd of that year he came down to Chatham, 
and, in a car placed at our disposal by Dr. Cotman 
and Dr. Taylor — two local medical men both of 
whom accompanied us — I conducted him to* the 
trench which contained what has proved to be the 
remains of the largest elephant in the world." 
A NINE-FOOT TUSK. 
Mr. Turner, who is a native of Lulon, near 
Chatham, has worked for over seventeen years in 
the dockyard as a skilled labourer. It is very 
rare to find a case of "a working-man" who has 
made a hobby of such an abstruse study as geo- 
logy and archaeology, with their kindred branches 
of research. "In a geological aspect," declared 
Mr. Turner, "what I don't know about the locali- 
ty is not worth knowing. I was first led to study 
