y CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 11. PACHYDERM ATA. 633 
They appeared to have opened up these paths with great judgment, always taking the best and 
shortest cut to the next open savannah, or ford of the river, and in this way their labors were of 
the greatest use to us by pioneering our route through a most intricate country, never yet trav- 
ersed by a wheel carriage, and great part of it, indeed, not easily accessible, even on horseback. 
In such places the great bull elephant always marches in the van, bursting through the jungle as 
a bullock would through a field of hops, treading down the brushwood, and breaking off with his 
proboscis the larger branches that obstruct the passage, while the females and younger part of 
the herd follow in his wake. 
"Among the mimosa-trees sprinkled over the meadows, or lower bottoms, the traces of their 
operations were not less apparent. Immense numbers of these trees had been torn out of the 
ground and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease 
on the jnicy roots, which form a favorite part of their food. I observed that in numerous in- 
stances, when the trees were of considerable size, the elephant had employed one of his tusks 
exactly as we would use a crowbar, thrusting it under the roots to loosen their hold of the earth, 
before he attempted to tear them up with his proboscis. Many of the larger mimosas had resisted 
all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rains, when the soil is soft and loose, that they 
can successfully attempt this operation." 
Captain Harris gives us the following affecting incident, which took place the day after a suc- 
cessful hunt : " Not an elephant was to be seen on the ground that was yesterday teeming with 
them, but on reaching the glen which had been the scene of our exploits, a calf, about three and 
a half feet high, walked forth from a bush, and saluted us with its mournful, piping notes. We 
had observed the unhappy little wretch hovering about its mother after she fell, and, having prob- 
ably been unable to overtake the herd, it had passed a dreary night in the wood. Entwining its 
little proboscis about our legs, the sagacious creature, after demonstrating its delight in our arri- 
val by a thousand ungainly antics, accompanied the party to the body of its dam, which, swollen 
to an enormous size, was surrounded by an inquest of vultures. The conduct of the quaint little 
calf now became quite affecting, and elicited the sympathy of every one. It ran round its mothers 
corse with touching demonstrations of grief, piping sorrowfully, and vainly attempting to raise 
her with its tiny trunk. At length, the miniature elephant, finding that its mother heeded not 
its caresses, voluntarily followed our party to the wagons, Avhere it was received with shouts of 
welcome from the people, and a band of all sorts of melody from the cattle. It died, however, in 
spite of every care, in the course of a few days, as did two others, much older, that we subse- 
quently captured." 
We have already alluded to the murderous slaughter of elephants in Africa by other hunters, 
and especially by Cummings. All these seem to have been surpassed, however, by a Frenchman 
named Delegorgue, who, with two negro attendants, met a herd consisting of eleven of these ani- 
mals and killed every one of them. They fell so piled on one another as to constitute a strange, 
grotesque heap, which, says the narrator, so excited the risible faculties of the party as moment- 
arily to deprive them of strength. If man is the greatest of destroyers, he is also the only one 
that laughs over his fallen prey, unless, indeed, it may be the hyena. 
Fossil Proboscidians. — The fossil remains of several species of Proboscidiens are found, many 
of them in high northern latitudes, where no animals of this kind now exist. Bones and tusks 
of elephants or mastodons occur throughout Russia, and more particularly in Eastern Siberia and 
the arctic marshes. The tusks are very numerous, and in so high a state of preservation that 
they form an article of commerce, and are employed in the same works as what may be termed 
the living ivory of Asia and Africa, though the fossil trunks fetch an inferior price. Siberian 
fossil ivory forms the principal material on which the Russian ivory-turner works. The tusks 
most abound in the Laichovian Isles and on the shores of the Frozen Sea, and the best are found 
in the countries near the arctic circle, and in the most eastern regions, where the soil in the very 
short summer is thawed only at the surface; in some years not at all. In 1799 a Tungusian 
named Schumachoff, who generally went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the 
fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks of the 
Lake Oncoul, and had embarked to seek along the coasts for tusks, called horns by the people of 
' Vol. I.— 80 
