THE ELEPHANT OF INDIA. 
107 
appearance, yet his activity and speed are very 
great, a swift horse being sometimes unable to 
get away from him. The skin is thick and hard, 
dry like, and wrinkled into folds about the setting 
on of the legs, on the neck and breast. It is of 
a brownish gray colour, sometimes slightly mottled 
with flesh colour, and is thinly set with rigid 
hairs of a somewhat similar tint, which are most 
abundant on the head. The form of the head 
varies with age, it increases immensely in the 
adults, and exhibits the depth of sinus, which 
almost entirely surrounds the cavity of the 
head, and is observed in the skeleton. The 
teeth are often of immense weight, and with 
the tusks are the most valuable part of the 
animal, and for which they were formerly much 
persecuted. There are sometimes twenty trans- 
verse ridges in a single tooth. The tusks grow 
to a very large size, but are of a concentric struc- 
ture, and afford the finest ivory. The first tusks 
are shed when they have obtained the length of 
three or four inches, and are replaced by the 
permanent ones, which sometimes reach an enor- 
mous size. They are composed of conical layers, 
set in one after the other, the interior being the 
last produced. The base is hollowed into a 
conical cavity, prolonged into a narrow canal, 
which runs along the centre of the tusk, and is 
filled with a blackish matter. The outward layer 
