so 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. II. 



But it is manifestly inconsistent with the idea that tusks 

 were given to the elephant to assist him in digging for 

 his food, to find that the females are less bountifully 

 supplied with them than the males, whilst the necessity 

 for their use extends equally to both sexes. The same 

 argument serves to demonstrate the fallacy of the con- 

 jecture, that the tusks of the elephant were given to 

 him as weapons of offence, for if such were the case the 

 vast majority in Ceylon, males as well as females, would 

 be left helpless in presence of an assailant. But although 

 in their conflicts with one another, those which are pro- 

 vided with tusks may occasionally push with them 

 clumsily at their opponents ; it is a misapprehension to 

 imagine that tusks are designed specially to serve " in 

 warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and the furious 

 rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow which 

 transfixes the assailant to the earth." 1 



governorship of the Portuguese set- logical Recreations, p. 255, says a 

 tlements at Mozambique, told me, tusk of 350 pounds' weight was 

 in 1848, that he had been requested sold at Amsterdam, but he does 

 to procure two tusks of the largest not quote his authority, 

 size, and straightest possible shape, 1 Menageries, fyc, published by 

 which were to be formed into a the Society for the Diffusion of 

 cross to surmount the high altar of Useful Knowledge, vol. i. p. 68 : 

 the cathedral at Groa: he succeeded " The Elephant," ch. iii. It will 

 in his commission, and sent two, be seen that I have quoted re- 

 one of which was 180 pounds, and peatedly from this volume, because 

 the other 170 pounds' weight, with it is the most compendious and 

 the slightest possible curve. In a careful compilation with which I 

 periodical, entitled The Friend, am acquainted of the information 

 published in Ceylon, it is stated in previously existing regarding the 

 the volume for 1837 that the officers elephant. The author incorporates 

 belonging to the ships Quorrah and no speculations of his own, but has 

 Alburhak, engaged in the Niger most diligently and agreeably ar- 

 Expedition, were shown by a na- ranged all the facts collected by 

 tive king two tusks, each two feet his predecessors. The story of 

 and a half in circumference at the antipathy between the elephant 

 base, eight feet long, and weighing and rhinoceros is probably borrowed 

 upwards of 200 pounds. (Vol. i. from ^Elian de Nat., lib. xvii. c. 

 p. 225.) Brodebip, in his Zoo- 44. 



