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THE ELEPHANT. 
This fact is a confirmation of Busber’s account of 
the animal playing at ball. One of the elephants in 
the Jardin des Plantes is extremely expert at playing 
with a log of wood, which it often does to the 
great amusement of the crowd. 
The tusks of the elephant, another of its striking 
features, which not only serve it as weapons of offence 
or defence, as the case may be, but enable it to ob¬ 
tain a large portion of its sustenance, are deeply 
imbedded in the upper jaw of the skull, on either 
side of the trunk. Nearly one-third of their whole 
length is occupied by the sockets, which, as long as 
the teeth continue to grow, are very thin. When 
this is no longer the case, the sides of the hollow 
become somewhat more solid, whilst the pulp is 
gradually absorbed. Thus, in old female elephants, 
it has been observed that the sockets were nearly 
filled up with ivory, and it is a great wonder 
how the animals were able to balance or retain 
them. 
The tusks of the female African elephant are, as 
I have said, comparatively small, averaging probably 
not more than twelve or fifteen pounds each; the 
largest I ever heard of did not weigh more than 
twenty-nine pounds. Those of a full-grown male 
are occasionally many times heavier. During my 
visit to Lake Ngami, I saw several varying from 
eighty to one hundred pounds each; and I 
have been given to understand that, both on the 
east and west coasts of Africa, tusks exceeding one 
hundred pounds are by no means uncommon. The 
aggregate weight of two tusks of a male elephant 
