E L E ] 
Ms joints firm and firong. The figure of the elephant 
given in the annexed engraving, is of the mooknah breed, 
and was tranfmitted to the editors as a real and ftriking 
portrait of one which had been in the family of the na¬ 
bob of Arcot upwards of a hundred years. His tufks, 
which were never long, had fallen many years before his 
portrait was taken, as fuppofed, from extreme old age. 
“ The varieties between the mooknah and dauntelah 
are confiderable, and for thefe there are appropriate 
names, according as the form of the tilths varies from the 
projecting horizontal, but rather elevated, curve of the 
pullung daunt of the perfect dauntelah, to the nearly 
ftraight tu,fks of the mooknah, which point directly down¬ 
wards. Pullung fignifies a bed or cot, and daunt, teeth ; 
and, from the tutks projecting fo regularly, and being a 
little curved and elevated at the extremities, the natives 
fuppofe a man might lie on them at his eafe, as on a bed. 
When a dauntelah has never had but one tufk, and this 
of the pullung fort, he is faid to be a goneijh or gancfa , 
and will fell to the Hindoo princes for a very high price, 
to be kept in (fate, and worshipped as the Hindoo god of 
w-ifdom. I have feen elephants apparently of this kind; 
but, when accurately examined, the tufk wanting ap¬ 
peared to me to have been loft by accident, fo that I can¬ 
not fay I ever faw a male which had originally only one 
tuflc. 
“ A fecond variety of the dauntelah is, when the large 
tufks point downwards, proje&ing only a little way beyond 
the trunk; he is then faid to have foor or choor daunt ; 
that is, hog’s teeth. A third variety is the puttel-dauntee, 
whofe tufks are Straight, like thofe of the mooknah, only 
much longer, and thicker. A fourth variety is the an - 
kcos-dauntee, or crooked, where one tufk grows nearly ho¬ 
rizontal-, like the pullung-daunt, and the other like the 
puttel-daunt. Befides thefe, the elephant-keepers notice 
other varieties, which are lefs diftinCt.” 
The elephants of Ceylon, Cochin-china, &c. being of 
the true Afiatic fpecies, are more or lefs fubject to the 
fame varieties. Thofe in China, as we are informed by 
fir George Staunton, are brought from the neighbourhood 
of the equator, and are of a lighter and fmaller breed 
than thofe of Cochin-china. “ Thefe, however difcreet 
in their amours, (fays fir George,) are found to unite in 
the manner of other quadrupeds, notwithftanding a for¬ 
mation apparently inconvenient on both fides, but which 
accommodates itfelf to particular purpofes.” See Em- 
baffy to China, vol. ii. p. 312. 
The mode of dentition in the elephant, is a new and in- 
terefting fubjedl of investigation, which has been pur- 
fued with great labour and attention by Mr. Corfe. “All 
the tufks in the male (fays this writer) are fixed very 
deep in the upper jaw ;' and the root or upper part, which 
is hollow and filled with a core, goes as high as the in- 
fertionof the trunk, round the margin of the nafal open¬ 
ing to the throat; which opening is juft below the pro¬ 
tuberance of the forehead. Through this opening the 
elephant breathes, and by its means he fucks up water 
into his trunk; between it and the roots of the tufks 
thefe is only a thin bony plate. The firft or milk tufks 
of an elephant never grow to any fize, but are fhed be¬ 
tween the firft and fecond year, when not two inches in 
length. Thefe, as well as the firft grinders, are named 
by the natives dood-kau-daunt, which literally fignifies milk 
teeth. The tufks which are filed have a confiderable part 
of the root or fang abfbrbed or decayed before this hap¬ 
pens ; as may be feen, by comparing one that has been 
ihed, with another lodged in the locket of a young ele¬ 
phant, before it had cut the gum. The time at which 
the tufks cut the gum, varies confiderably. I have known 
a young one get his tufks when about five months old ; 
whereas, the tufks of another did not cut the gum till he 
was feven months old. Thofe tufks which are deciduous, 
are perfect, and without any hollow in the root, in a foetus 
which is come to its full time ; at this period, the focket 
of the permanent tufk begins to be formed; on the inner 
HAS. 463 
fide of the deciduous tufk. A young elephant fhed one 
of his milk tufks on the 6th of November, 1790, when 
near thirteen months old, and the other on the 27th of 
December, when above fourteen months old : they were 
merely two black.coloured (lumps, when died; but, two 
months afterwards the permanent ones cut the gum, and, 
on the 19th of April, 1791, they wrnre an inch long, but 
black and ragged at the ends. When they became longer, 
and projected beyond the lip, they foon were worn 
fmooth, by the motion and fridlion of the trunk. 
“The permanent tufks of the female are very frhal- 1 , 
in companion with thofe of the male, and do not take 
their rife fo deep in the jaw ; but they ufe them as wea¬ 
pons of offence, in the fame manner as the male named 
mooknah ; that is, by putting their head above another 
elephant, and prefting their tufks down into the animal. 
Thefe tufks are never fhed, except by accident, or ex¬ 
treme old age ; and fometimes they grow to a very large 
fize in the male dauntelah. The larged I have known in 
Bengal, did not exceed feventy-two pounds, avoirdupois: 
at Tiperah, they feldom exceed fifty pounds; but both 
thefe weights are very inferior to that of the tufks brought 
from other places to the Indja-houfe, where 1 have feen 
fome near 150 pounds each. From what part of Alia 
they came, I could not learn, but fufpedf they were im¬ 
ported from Pegu to Calcutta, and thence to London. 
“The African elephant is faid to be fmaller than the 
Afiatic; yet I am credibly informed, by the ivory-dealers 
in London, that‘the larged tufks generally come from 
Africa, and are of a better texture, and lefs liable to turn 
yellow, than the Indian ivory, after being manufactured. 
This probably is owing to the tufks having lain longer in 
Africa, before they were imported, than thofe brought 
from Afia. In the latter country, moft of the tufks ex¬ 
ported are taken from elephants immediately after their 
death ; whereas, the Africans find many teeth in the de- 
fert places which have been frequented by this animal. 
The intenfe heat of a vertical fun will undoubtedly ren¬ 
der the ivory firmer and harder, if the tufks happen to 
lie on the fcorching fand, or in any other dry fituation. 
“ The increafe of the tufk arifes from circular layers 
of ivory, applied internally, from the core on which they 
are formed, fimilar to what happens in the growth of the 
horns of fome animals. When the tufks of the living 
elephant are fawn through, and the remaining portion ex- 
poled fome months to the air, this ftruCture is clearly 
fliewn. If the period in which one of thefe circular 
layers is completed could be afeertained, this might lead 
us to fix, with tolerable precifion, the age of an elephant, 
by counting the circles in each tufk. Cutting off a por¬ 
tion of the tufks of a living elephant is a common prac¬ 
tice ; it is done with a view to make the tufks grow 
thicker, when they are too long and (lender, and alfo 
fometimes for the fake of uniformity, when they grow in 
a wrong direction. 
“ With regard to the ftruCture of the grinders, it rauft 
be obferved, that a grinder is compofed of feveral diftinCt 
laminte or teeth, each covered with its proper enamel; 
and that thefe teeth are merely joined to each other by 
the common olleous matter. This, being much fofter 
than the enamel, wears away fafter by the maftication 
of the food ; and, in a few months after fome of thefe 
teeth cut the gum, the enamel remains confiderably high¬ 
er, fo that the furface of each grinder loon acquires a 
ribbed appearance, as if originally forined with ridges : 
tliis however is not the cafe, as may be feen by examining 
a grinder juft cutting the gum, but both its fides have a 
fluted form, owing to the junction of the different ftrata. 
Thefe ftrata, when firft formed, have no firm attachment 
to each other, but always appear feparate and diftindt, 
when contained in their bony fockets within the jaw, af¬ 
ter their membranes and foft parts are deftroyed. Before 
any part of a grinder cuts the gum, there is a bony cruft 
formed above the enamel, which gives a fmoothnefs to the 
grinding fmface. But, after the grinders cut the gum. 
