PREFACE. 
I N the year 1896 the Zoological Gardens of Copenhagen received a young Indian Elephant lame in one 
hind-leg, the femur having been dislocated during the capture of the animal. It lived nearly three 
years in the gardens, but then the authorities of the institution decided, on account of the creature’s 
lameness, and its consequent distressing appearance, to have it killed, and to hand over the body to the 
Zoological Laboratory of the R. Veterinary and Agricultural College, of which laboratory one of us is the 
curator. The live animal was accordingly transported to the College, where, after an injection of morphia 
it was chloroformed. In concordance with previous experiences of others the animal showed none of the 
violent reactions to the chloroform so general in many animals before the narcosis. During the narcosis 
the head and neck were separated from the hodv as near the thorax as possible, and immediately after 
removal were injected with a four per cent solution of formaldehyde, through the carotids. It was then 
placed in the usual freezing mixture (salt and ice) for forty eight hours; alter which it was carried 
into a saw-mill, and by means of a band-saw was divided sagitally into halves. The conservation, and 
the freezing, proved excellent; and the section-plane had a rather good course. It may also be noted here, 
that the animal, in all respects, —the luxation in the hip-joint excepted—, appeared to he quite healthy; 
the material thus being in a first-rate condition. The head has since been preserved in formaldehyde 1 ). 
It is with an investigation of this head that the present work has started; of which herewith the First 
Part is issued, which deals with the Proboscis and the Facial Muscles of the Elephant. The treatment of 
these muscles has been decided upon from a desire to establish the homology of the muscles which take 
part in the formation of the proboscis of the Elephant — what has been the departure of the whole 
work. But with this object in view we were naturally induced to take up the study of the whole of the 
facial muscles of the Elephant and this again of some necessity led us into a comparative study of the 
facial muscles of the Mammals generally. The results of the last-named investigation we have laid down 
in the first paragraph of the present work. It has in this place been our principal aim to establish the General 
scheme of the facial muscles of the Mammals and to have a synopsis of the whole subject, as plain as 
possible. To attain this end we have studied a number of forms of various groups of Mammals, the 
majority of the »orders« having been investigated in one or — generally — more representatives 2 ). Although 
we are well aware, that very much work must be done before the matter is exhausted, we venture to 
hope that the plain scheme, to which we have arrived through our rather extensive — but in the individual 
object nevertheless quite intensive — studies, shall in the main prove to be settled. As to the origin of 
the whole of the facial muscles and their derivation from what is found in the lower Vertebrates — a 
') Besides we have had at our disposal the trunk of another young Elephant, which in 1890 died in a circus in Copenhagen; and a fragment of the 
head of an Elephant, which has been got in exchange from Prof. Stoss in Munich. 
-) The major part of the material has been obtained in the course of time from the Zoological Gardens of Copenhagen, to which institution we are 
largely indebted. Some few forms we have ourselves collected or purchased, or obtained through the benevolence of our colleague, the celebrated Mammalogist 
of Stockholm, Prof. W. Leche, to whom we express our best thanks. 
