172 A Memoir on the living Asiatic Species of Rhinoceros. [No. 2, 
in the number of its dorsal vertebrae and pairs of ribs, it differs from 
both the other known species. As far as we know, there are seven 
cervical, three lumbar, and four sacral vertebrae in all the species of 
Elephas alike. E. sum ate Aims and E. indicus agree in the 
number of caudal vertebrae, which is usually thirty-three, but in very 
, young examples sometimes only thirty. In E. African us, on the 
other hand, the tail never contains more than twenty-six vertebrae. 
Finally, the number of dorsal vertebra? and pairs of ribs are differ¬ 
ent in each of the three living species of Elephant; being in E. afei- 
canus twenty-one. in E. sum ate anus twenty, and in E. indices 
nineteen. # 
“ It is also remarkable, that the number of true ribs is alike in all 
the species, that is, only five ; whilst in the three species, as above 
given, the corresponding numbers of false ribs is fifteen, fourteen, 
and thirteen. Hence it follows that the augmentation of these 
parts, in the different species, takes place in the direction of the 
hindmost dorsal vertebrae and pairs of ribs. 
“ The lamime of the teeth afford another distinction, which, how¬ 
ever, is less apparent to the eye than that taken from the number of 
the vertebne. These lamina?, or bands, in E. sumatranus are wider 
(or, if one way so say, broader in the direction of the long axis of the 
teeth,) than in E. indices. In making this comparison, one must 
remark that the distinction is less evident in younger individuals ; 
and that there are met with, in all species of Elephants, within cer¬ 
tain definite limits, remarkable individual differences in respect of 
the width of these lamina?. 
“ In their external form, also, the two Asiatic Elephants appear to 
present some differences. Heer Westerman, Director of the Gard¬ 
ens of the Zoological Society of Amsterdam, which has for several 
years possessed two female Elephants of moderate size, one [receiv¬ 
ed] from Calcutta and the other from Sumatra, informs me, on this 
subject, that the Sumatran animal is more slender and more finely 
built that the Bengalese [wherever that might have originally come 
from!], that it has a longer and thinner snout, and that the rump at 
the end is more broadened and covered with longer and stronger 
* The skeleton of Ele]?has indices in the Society’s museum, mid also that 
in the museum of the Calcutta Medical College, arc those of the true continental 
species, according to Professor Solilcgel’s diagnosis. 
