l6o GUIDE TO THE 
The Boat House 
in which two or three pleasure-boats are kept which can 
be used on payment of the regular fee. But, before 
entering the large house, the visitor should walk as far as 
The Elephant Picket. 
These animals are examples of the Indian species, and 
their number in the Gardens varies according as they are 
in demand for export or exchange. They are kept, 
in all weathers, merely under the shade of some trees, 
as this has been found amply sufficient for their comfort 
and health. There are only two species of elephants 
known, viz., the Asiatic Elephant and the African Ele¬ 
phant. The most distinctive feature of the elephant, 
apart from its enormous size, huge head, and pillar-like 
legs, is its trunk. This remarkable proboscis is struc¬ 
turally speaking a greatly elongated nose with the nos¬ 
trils at its extremity, but it plays a most important part 
in the economy of the great beast, for by means of it, 
the elephant collects its food and carries it to its mouth, and 
also drinks, and syringes its body with water, or blows 
dust over its leathery hide. It is also used for throwing 
objects, and it is so powerful and yet so delicate in its 
movements by reason of the 40,000 muscles which Cuvier 
calculated it to contain, that with it the animal can pull 
down a tree, or pick up a pin. Much of the wonderful 
adaptability of the trunk to grasp objects is due to the 
presence of a small prolongation of the muscles at its 
extremity above and between the nostrils, forming, as it were, 
a finger, and opposed to which is a sort of thumb, and it is 
between these two procesess that small objects are grasped. 
As an organ of touch, it is exquisitely fine. It is said, 
