ELEPHANT. 
121 
the upper jaw, and are sometimes found above 
six feet long. Some have supposed them to bo 
rather the horns than the teeth of this animal ; 
but, besides their greater similitude to bone than 
to horn, they have been indisputably found to 
grow from the upper jaw, and not from the fron- 
tal bones, as some have thought proper to assert. 
Some also have asserted, that these tusks are shed 
in the same manner as the stag sheds his horns; 
but it is very probable, from their solid consis- 
tence, and from their accidental defects, which 
often appears to be the effect of a slow decay, 
that they are as fixed as the teeth of other animals 
are generally found to be. Certain it is that the 
elephant never sheds them in a domestic state, but 
keeps them till they become inconvenient and 
cumbersome to the last degree. An account of uses 
to which these teeth are applied, and the manner of 
choosing the best ivory, belongs rather to a history 
of the arts than of nature. 
This animal is ^equally singular in other parts 
of its conformation ; the lips and the tongue in 
other creatures serve to suck up and direct their 
drink or their food ; but in the elephant they are 
totally inconvenient for such purposes ; and it 
not only gathers its food with its trunk, hut sup- 
plies itself with water by the same means. When 
it eats hay, as I have seen it frequently, it takes 
up a small wisp of it with the trunk, turns and 
shapes it with that instrument for some time, and 
then directs it into the mouth, where it is chewed 
by the great grinding teeth, that are I^rge in pro- 
portion to the bulk of the animal. This pacquet, 
when chewed, is swallowed, and never ruminated 
again as in cows or sheep, the stomach and intes- 
tines of this creature more resembling those of a 
Morse. Its manner of drinking is equally extra- 
ordinary. For this purpose, s the elephant dips 
