THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT. 
Elephas africanus. 
Plate XXIV. 
While the Indian Elephants have always formed one of the most prominent features in the collection of 
animals belonging to the Zoological Society of London ever since the first institution of their Gardens, the 
African form of this huge animal has until the last few years remained unrepresented in the series. As, 
however, the Indian and African Elephants are very distinct in outward form as well as in inward structure, 
the Council of the Society have long been desirous of obtaining examples of the latter species, so that the two 
might be exhibited together side by side. It was not, however, until the summer of 1865 that these wishes 
were realized, and the first specimen of the African Elephant was received in the Society’s Gardens. This 
was a young male, supposed to be about five or six years old when he arrived, acquired from the Jardin des 
Plantes, Paris, in exchange for an Indian Rhinoceros. A few months later, singularly enough, two small 
female African Elephants came into the London market. The best of these was purchased by the Society for 
the sum of 4500, and a pair of this animal thus brought together—for the first time, it is believed, since the 
days of the Roman Empire—in Europe, 
The most striking external character of the African Elephant as compared with his Indian brother, are 
the enormous ears and the convex outline of the forehead. There are likewise very marked differences in the 
structure of the teeth of the two animals, and in the conformation of the cranium. These, however, I need 
not further allude to except to say that they are sufficient to shew that these two animals, now the sole living 
representatives of their race, when intercalated in their proper place in the series of fossil Elephants, must be 
referred to two different sections of the group. 
The range of the African Elephant is at present confined to Africa south of the Sahara, but in bygone 
ages extended as far northwards as the south of Europe, where its fossil remains are often found. In the 
neighbourhood of the settled portions of Africa, and indeed in nearly every part of the Cape Colony, it may 
also be looked upon as an extinct animal, having been driven away and exterminated by the advancing tide 
of civilization. But explorers of the unknown interior, such as Speke, Livingstone, and Baker, still meet with 
this animal in enormous herds, and large quantities of ivory—the product of its tusks are imported from 
these regions every year into Europe. 
It is generally supposed that the African Elephant is naturally inferior to the Indian in sagacity and 
tractabilitv, and consequently less competent to be useful to mankind as a trained animal. As far, however, 
as our experience goes with the African Elephants now in the Zoological Society’s Gardens, there seems to be 
no grounds for such a supposition. It is quite certain that, in modern times at least, the African Elephant has 
never been employed as a trained animal for the use of mankind, but this is probably due more to the 
inferiority of the race of man which tenants the area to which the African Elephant in . a state of nature is 
restricted, than to any innate difference between the capacities of the African and Indian animal. It is 
certain, as Sir J. Emerson Tennent remarks, when speaking of this very point, that the Elephants which 
excited the wonder of the spectators in the Roman Amphitheatres in the days of (Elian and Pliny, were 
brought from Africa, and acquired their accomplishments from European instruction—a sufficient proof that 
under equally favourable auspices, the African species is capable of developing docility and power equal 
to that of India.* 
* “The Wild Elephant,” (1867) p. 151. 
