"After having dispatched him, I was curious to see what wound the shot had given, which had operated so violently upon so huge an animal; and I doubted not it was in the brain.

But it had

struck him no where but upon the point of the foremost horn, of which it had carried off above an inch; and this occasioned a concussion that had stunned him for a minute, till the bleeding had recovered him."

It has been often asserted that the tongue of the Rhinoceros is so hard and rough, as to take away the skin and flesh wherever it licks any person that has unfortunately fallen a victim to its fury.* Dr. Sparrman says, however, that he thrust his hand into the mouth of one that had just been shot, and found the tongue perfectly soft and smooth.

The cavity which contained the brain of one of these huge animals, was only six inches long and four deep; and, being filled with pease, was found to hold barely a quart; while a human skull, measured at the same time, took above two quarts to fill it.

The Hottentots, and even some of the inhabitants of the Cape, set a high value on the dried blood of the Rhinoceros, to which they ascribe great virtues in the cure of many disorders of the body. The flesh is eatable, but it is very sinewy.

* Kolben, ii. 103.

ELEPHANT.

ELEPHANTS have no front-teeth in either jaw; and from the upper-jaw proceed two long and stout tusks, which, in a state of nature, are used in tearing up trees for food, and as weapons of defence against their enemies. They have a very long, cartilaginous, prehensile trunk, which is capable of laying hold even of very minute objects; and their body is nearly naked.

No more than one species has hitherto been discovered.

THE ELEPHANT.*

There is scarcely any animal in the Creation that has at different times taken up so much the attention of mankind as the Elephant. Formed in a very particular manner for the service of man in the hot climates, it possesses every requisite to usefulness. It is strong, active, and laborious; replete with mildness and sagacity. Docile in a very eminent degree, it may be trained to almost any service that a brute is capable of performing.

Elephants are found wild in the shady woods of Asia and Africa, where they generally live in large troops. They feed on vegetables, the young shoots of trees, grains, and fruit of various kinds. Their incursions are much dreaded in plantations, where they frequently commit the most violent depredations; at the same time also materially in

* SYNONYMS.-Elephas maximus. Linn.-Elephant. Smellie.-Elephantus. Buffon.Shaw's Gen. Zool. pl. 63, 64-Bew. Quad. p. 166.

juring the crops, by trampling the ground with

their vast feet.

The skin of the Elephant is generally of a deep ash-coloured brown, approaching to black. The tusks are not visible in young animals, but in the more advanced state of growth they are eminently conspicuous; and in the full-grown animal they advance sometimes so much as ten feet from their sockets. It is but rarely that they are seen in the females; and when they appear they are but small, and their direction is somewhat downwards.

This is undoubtedly the largest of all terrestrial animals, arriving sometimes at the height of twelve feet; though the more general height seems to be from nine to ten. It is said to live to the age of a hundred, or a hundred and twenty years.

The female seldom produces more than one young one at a birth. This, when first born, is about three feet high, and continues growing till it is sixteen or eighteen years old. The teats of the female are two, seated at a small distance behind the forelegs.

The eyes are extremely small; the ears very large and pendulous. The form indeed of the whole animal appears very awkward: the head is large; the body thick; the back much arched; the legs extremely thick, and very short; and the feet slightly divided into, or rather edged with, five rounded hoofs; the tail is terminated by a few scattered, very thick, and black hairs.

* The largest tusks imported into England measure seven feet in length, and weigh about 150lb. each.

In the structure of the Elephant, the most sin-. gular organ is the trunk or proboscis. This is an extension of the canals of the nose it is very long, composed of a great number of cartilaginous rings, and is through its whole length divided by a continuation of the septum. At the lower end it is furnished with a kind of moveable finger, that seems to divide the opening into two parts. It is so strong as to be capable of breaking off large branches from trees. Through this the animal smells and breaths; and it is possessed of such exquisite sensibility that he can pick up with it almost the smallest bodies from the ground. By means of this the Elephant conveys the food to its mouth, which is situated so much in the under part of its head as to seem almost a part of the breast. The sense of smelling he enjoys in the highest perfection; and when a number of people are standing around him he will discover food in the pocket of any one, and take it out with his trunk with great dexterity.* With this he can untie the knots of ropes, open and shut gates, by turning the keys, or pushing back the bolts; it is in short one of the completest instruments that nature has bestowed even on her most favorite productions.t

The skin of this animal, where it is not callous,

*Church.

+ Elephants are said to be exceedingly afraid of Mice, lest they should get through the trunk into their lungs, and thus stifle them: and, therefore, sleep with the end of the proboscis so close to the ground, that nothing but air can get in between.--Ray's Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation, p. 384.

is extremely sensible. In the fissures and other places where it is moist and soft, he feels the stinging of flies in such a lively manner, that he not only employs his natural movements, but even the resources of his intelligence to rid himself of them. He strikes them with his tail, his ears, and his trunk. He contracts his skin, and crushes them between its wrinkles. He drives them off with branches of trees, or bundles of long straw. When all these artifices are unsuccessful, he collects dust with his trunk, and covers all the sensible parts of his skin with it. He has been observed dusting himself in this manner several times in a day; and always at the most proper season, namely, after bathing.*

The Elephants' dispositions are gentle, and their manners social, for they are seldom seen wandering alone. They generally march in troops, the oldest keeping foremost, and the next in age bringing up the rear. The young and the feeble are placed in the middle. The mothers carry their young firmly embraced in their trunks. They, however, do not observe this order, except in perilous marches, when they want to pasture on cultivated fields. In the deserts and forests, they travel with less precaution, but without separating so far as to exceed the possibility of receiving assistance from one another.

The wild Elephants of Ceylon live in troops or families, distinct and separate from all others,