DENTITION. 
255 
the eye, yielded, and burst with a muffled crash. 
The tusks were thus free, and turned right round 
in his head, so that a man could draw them out, 
and the carcase fell over and rested on its side. 
This was a very first-rate elephant, and the tusks 
he carried were long and perfect.” 
It is not always, however, that the tusks will 
stand a similar strain to this, as evidenced by what 
the author just quoted tells us when describing the 
conclusion of an elephant-hunt:— 
“These two shots wound up the proceedings; 
for, on receiving them, the animal backed stern fore¬ 
most into the cover, and soon afterwards I heard 
him fall over heavily-—but, alas ! the sound was ac¬ 
companied by a sharp crack, and, on running for¬ 
ward, I found him lying dead, with his lovely tusk, 
which lay under, snapped through the middle.” 
Dentition in the elephant is very curious and 
interesting. Besides the tusks, which correspond 
to the canine teeth in other quadrupeds, he has only 
grinders—the incisors, or cutting-teeth, being en¬ 
tirely absent. The total number of grinders con¬ 
sists of from twenty to twenty-three teeth, or rather 
laminae, in each side of either jaw; but, from the whole 
being enclosed in a bony case, theyhave the appear¬ 
ance of forming only a single tooth or grinder. A very 
great number of years are supposed to be requisite 
for the full development of a set of grinders; indeed 
they may be said never to be completed, for, as one 
set gradually wears away another is forming, a pro¬ 
cess which continues to the end of life. They are 
never supplied from beneath (as in animals in 
