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by five nails. The whole number of nails is seldom developed on the hind feet. The author of Oriental Field Sports says, "To please a native, there should be five on each fore-foot, and four on each hind-foot: odd numbers are considered by them as unlucky.* I have known some with fifteen nails, which no native would purchase; and I have heard of one with twenty: but I do not recollect seeing one with more than eighteen." The sole of an elephant's foot is nearly circular; and in one of eight feet high is about twelve inches in diameter.

Supported, then, upon these solid pillars, an elephant moves forward in search of food. His diet is wholly vegetable. The intestines are formed upon the same principle as in the horse. It has been observed by Sir Everard Home, that "the colon in animals that live upon the same species of food is of a greater length in proportion to the scantiness of the supply. Among quadrupeds, this may be illustrated by the length of the colon in the elephant being only twenty feet six inches, while in the dromedary it is forty-two. The first inhabits the fertile woods of Asia, the latter the arid deserts of Arabia."+ Many other "remarkable facts and striking analogies make it clear that some process goes on in the colon, from which a secondary supply of nourishment is produced." The elephant, from the simple construction of his stomach and intestines, which require frequent supplies; from the great quantity of food which he consumes for his ordinary support; from the waste which is

This is almost the only exception to the universal faith in odd numbers.

+ Comparative Anatomy, vol. i., p. 470.

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necessarily produced by the weight and bulk of his body; and from the conformation by which he is fitted to move upon level ground, is evidently the natural inhabitant of rich plains, where vegetation attains its utmost luxuriance, where the grass of the green savannas is ever kept fresh by perennial springs, and where the woods never cease to offer him their succulent shoots, which he delights to crop with his "lithe proboscis." A passage in Job which, principally under the authority of Bochart, has been applied to the hippopotamus, is considerered by many learned commentators as referring to the elephant. The following words certainly describe, with great accuracy, the natural haunts of the elephant: "He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed and fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about."* Thus, then, in

"The flowery lap

Of some irriguous valley,"

the elephant has to seek his daily food. But how is he to crop the store which nature has provided for him? The head of the horse is attached to his neck by a flexible series of vertebræ, which he can move at his pleasure; which he can arch in a graceful curve when he is proud and delighted, or throw upward with inflated nostrils when he is angry; by which he can graze without depressing his legs, or browse without elevating them. The head of the elephant is supported upon a very short, and, therefore, stiff series of vertebræ, which, by reason of their conformation, offer little more than a pivot upon which the animal can move his head, in a * Job xl., 21, 22.

limited degree, from side to side, but which prevent him either elevating or depressing it so as to procure his food. His enormous tusks, too, would, in some situations, prevent him conveniently reaching his sustenance, even if he could give his head the requisite movement. It is evident that the animal could not exist if nature had not provided him with an instrument of peculiar construction for supplying all his necessities.

Before we proceed to a description of the elephant's proboscis, it may be convenient to exhibit a section of the head, which offers some very remarkable peculiarities of conformation, as it evidently must do from having such singular attachments as the proboscis and the tusks.

The engraving represents the cranium of an Indian elephant, cut vertically. a is the opening of the nostrils; bb, the sinus which separates the two tables of the scull; c, the cavity of the brain. We shall explain other parts as we proceed to another division of the subject.. The two tables of the scull are separated from each other by numerous bony processes, between which there is a vast number of cells, communicating with the throat by means of the eustachian tube, and filled with air, instead of the medullary substance which occupies the same space in other animals. The structure is peculiarly adapted to the purposes of increasing the surface for the attachment of those large muscles which belong to the lower jaw, proboscis, and neck of the elephant, and of augmenting the mechanical power of these muscles by removing their attachments to a greater distance from the centre of motion. These advantages are attained by the cellular structure

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

Section of the Scull of the Elephant.

which we have just described, without augmenting the weight of the head; a precaution especially necessary in the present instance, as the head is more heavy and massy in this than in any other animal. The air-cells of birds in general, and

particularly those which pervade the scull of the ostrich, eagle, and owl, present examples of a similar formation, attended with the same uses, viz., those of increasing the bulk and strength of the bone, and diminishing its weight.

That this cavity of the scull is required to support the weight of the tusks in particular, which act as great levers, is proved by the growth of the tusks corresponding with the enlargement of the cranium. The cavity may also serve as a protection to the brain; for although the frontal bone is enormously thick, the animal is exposed to the most violent concussions in making his progress through the woods. Capt. Knox, in his account of Ceylon, says, "it is their constant practice to shove down with their heads great trees, which they love to eat, when they be too high, and they cannot otherwise reach the boughs.' The compensating power of the great cavity of the scull for bearing the trunk and the tusks, is superadded to the ordinary means of suspensory ligaments, which are invariably found in quadrupeds which "must needs hold their heads down in an inclining posture for a considerable time together, which would be very laborious and painful for the muscles."*

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The

opening in the scull called the "great occipital foramen" is, in most quadrupeds, obliquely situated at the base of the scull, whereas in man it is nearly parallel with the horizon, and almost in the centre of the base of the scull. The great occipital foramen transmits the spinal marrow; and the variations in the situation of this opening, in man and in animals of analogous structure, are important * Ray's Wisdom of God.

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