292 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Feb. 20, 1909. 
Someihing About Elephants. 
A CORRESPONDENT asks US Something about the 
size to which elephants grow. The question is 
not easy to answer owing to the fact that many 
men pay no regard to the size of the elephant, 
but consider merely the amount of ivory it will 
produce, because of the difficulty of measuring 
the dead animal and also because the average 
sportsman is often unwilling to take the trouble 
to make careful measurements. On the other 
hand many such measurements have been made 
of wild and captive animals. Years ago Mr. San¬ 
derson said that out of hundreds of Indian ele¬ 
phants that he had measured, the largest did not 
exceed 10 feet 714 inches at the shoulder. The 
largest Indian elephant 
ever killed by the late Col. 
G. P. Sanderson measured 
9 feet .7 inches. Captive 
elephants in the London 
Zoological Gardens, meas¬ 
ured in 1881, ran for In¬ 
dian elephants from 8 feet 
down. A Ceylon elephant, 
shot by Count Felice . 
Scheibler, measured 9 feet ,, 
4 inches, while a female 
African elephant measured | 
8 feet. F. C Selous gives 1 / , 
the height of African ele¬ 
phants at 10 feet 6 inches, 
and there are other records 
of about 10 feet. The cele¬ 
brated elephant Jumbo did 
not exceed ii feet, and 
weighed six and one-half 
tons when he was sent 
from England to America. 
There are plenty of ac¬ 
counts of elephants much 
larger than any of these 
figures, but many such ac¬ 
counts will not bear the 
test of rigid investigation. 
Nevertheless in the mus¬ 
eum at St. Petersburg there 
is said to be a skeleton i6l4 
feet high which came from 
an elephant sent by the 
King of Persia to the Czar 
Peter. 
Fossil elephants appear 
to grow much larger than 
the elephants of to-day and 
remains have been found 
in India, the height of 
which must have been fully 
15 feet. Fossil remains of 
elephants, more commonly 
called mammoths, have fre¬ 
quently been dug up in 
England, and in the Ox¬ 
ford Museum are the ver¬ 
tebrae and thigh bone of 
one which must have stood 
at least 16 feet high. 
The extraordinary waste¬ 
ful destruction of elephants 
for their ivory has been in 
some degree checked by the 
regulations in certain dis¬ 
tricts in Africa, but to 
some e.xtent still continues. 
The temptation to destroy these beasts is very 
great, for the ivory is worth roughly $4 a pound, 
and of course is constantly growing scarcer. Of 
recent years, however, other substances have come 
into use for articles formerly made from ivory. 
It is interesting to remember that the New 
York Zoological Society has in its collection, 
presented by the late Charles T. Barney, the 
record pair of tusks of the African elephant for 
the world. The longest of these tusks measures 
II feet inches, while the other measures ex¬ 
actly II feet. One measures 18 inches in cir¬ 
cumference and the other i8j 4 inches, and the 
combined weight of the two is 293 pounds. The 
next largest tusk on record is rriore than a foot 
shorter. It has been stated that these two huge 
tusks were formerly owned by King Menelik, of 
Abyssinia, and were by him presented to an offi¬ 
cial of the French Government. They are per¬ 
fect in every respect and will ultimately be 
shown with the National Collection of Heads 
and Horns in the Zoological Park. 
In portions of Africa the natives believe 
that when a herd of elephants is alarmed and 
runs away the bulls, if necessary, pick up and 
carry on their tusks the little ones which may 
not be able to keep up with the herd. These 
little ones, when first born, weigh not more than 
200 pounds, and of course might readily be car¬ 
ried, as stated. We do not know that any white 
man has ever seen this, but the natives insist 
that it is done. The method employed in 
India and Ceylon of cap¬ 
turing wild elephants by 
means of the keddah for 
domestic use is very 
familiar, and not so long 
ago we printed another 
account, explaining how in 
certain situations the wild 
elephants are run down by 
tame elephants. 
Animals ihati Kill : 
Wantonly. 
New York, Feb. 9.— 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In your issue of Feb. 6, 
Julian Burroughs makes 
the following statement: 
“Some months since, in 
McClure’s Magazine, W. T. 
Hornaday made the state¬ 
ment that minks and 
weasels are the only ani¬ 
mals that will kill wantonly 
for the mere lust of kill¬ 
ing.” 
Mr. Burroughs is quite 
mistaken. I did not make 
such a statement nor any¬ 
thing even remotely re¬ 
sembling it. I know very 
well that there are a num¬ 
ber of animals beside minks 
and weasels that kill wan- 
tanly “for the mere lust of 
killing.” 
W. T. Hornaday. 
NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY’S RECORD ELEPHANT TUSKS. 
West Park, N. Y., Feb. 
12. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The statement of 
Mr. Hornaday’s, to which 
I refer, was made in Mc¬ 
Clure’s Magazine, of Feb¬ 
ruary. 1908, page 447, first 
column, lines 31 and 32. 
It is: “With us, the only 
creatures that practice 
wholesale and unnecessary 
murder are minks and 
dogs.” 
I gather from the article 
that “with us” means here 
in North America; in this 
I may be mistaken, and if 
so am open to correction. 
Julian Burroughs. 
