254 
THE ELEPHANT, 
the animal’s lifetime. It is owing to the tenacity with 
which they hold fast to the jaw that the elephant is 
enabled to obtain the chief part of its food, viz., suc¬ 
culent bulbs, which it finds in the arid plains, and the 
leaves, branches, and roots of trees; for in the 
event of the upper part of the latter being beyond 
the reach of the creature’s proboscis, it drives one of 
its tusks (seldom or never both), in the manner of a 
crowbar, under the roots of the tree, and, using it 
as a lever, quickly succeeds in overthrowing it, the 
sooner, as the mimosa, on which it chiefly feeds, has 
no tap-root. But in this rough work the tusk is 
not unfrequently broken. 
Another remarkable instance, showing how firmly 
the tusks are imbedded in the skull of the elephant, 
is related by Gordon Gumming, who, when speaking 
of a huge brute that he had mortally wounded, 
says :— 
“ Just as the pangs of death came over him, he 
stood trembling violently beside a thorny tree, and 
kept pouring water from his trunk into his mouth 
until he died, when he pitched heavily forward, with 
the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the 
points of his tusks. He lay in this posture for 
several seconds, but the amazing pressure of the 
carcase was more than the head w T as able to sup¬ 
port; he had fallen with his head so short under 
him, that the tusks received little assistance from 
his legs. Something must give way : the strain on 
the mighty tusks was fair; they did not, therefore, 
yield ; but the portion of his head in which the 
tusks were imbedded, extending a long way above 
