118 
MAMMALIA. 
not even show the number of the toes (five on each foot), which 
remain encrusted and hidden under the skin. 
This shapeless, colossal, and heavy body is covered with a skin, 
callous, full of cracks and crevices, very thick, of a dirty blackish 
grey colour, having a few hairs sprinkled over here and there, 
and which are almost invisible, except on the back, on the eye- 
lids, and on the tail, which is terminated by a tuft.* 
Elephants live in the hottest parts of Africa and of Asia. Revel- 
ling in forests and swamps, they keep together in troops more 
or less numerous, which are either led by an old male, or very 
commonly by an old female. Their food consists of herbs, roots, 
and grains. They often seek their food in cultivated fields, where 
they do considerable damage. 
Tame Elephants are very fond of bananas and cocoa-nuts ; but 
their usual diet consists of hay, straw, rice, raw or cooked, bread, 
and the leaves of trees. It is remarkable that they are easily 
accustomed to drink wine, brandy, and all sorts of spirituous liquors. 
To support this enormous mass, these animals require to swallow 
a great quantity of food. In India, generally about fifty kilo- 
grammes of rice a day are given to one ; to this is added, to keep 
the animal in good health, a certain quantity of grass or fresh 
leaves, and especially sugar-cane tops when obtainable. 
The Elephant which was brought to Versailles in the time of 
Louis XIV. used to eat eighty pounds of bread a day and two 
bucketsful of soup ; it drank twelve pints of wine, and consumed 
besides a great quantity of cakes which the visitors brought to it. 
The pace at which Elephants walk is much more rapid than the 
clumsiness of their appearance would lead one to suppose. These ■; 
animals can, according to certain authors, do their twenty or 
twenty-five leagues a day. They also swim well. 
It was for a long time asserted that Elephants could not lie 
down, and that they always slept standing. It is true that among 
Elephants, as among Horses, are found some that can sleep stand- 
ing, and only rarely lie down ; but generally they sleep lying on 
their side, like the majority of other quadrupeds. 
The Elephant mother carries her young one twenty months. 
* The fossil Mammoth Elephant was well provided with hoth wool and long 
bristly hair, as protection from the cold climates in which it chiefly lived. At this 
present time, an Indian Elephant, which has now lived for many years in the 
elevated region of Tibet, has become well clad with hair. — Ed. 
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