Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/134

Rh 124 ELEPHANT probable that existing elephants have lost their hairy covering through exposure to tropical heat. The elephant continues to grow for upwards of 30 years, and to live for more than 100, there being well-authenticated cases of elephants that lived over 130 years in captivity. The female is capable of breeding after 15 years, and produces a single young one, rarely two, at a birth, the period of gestation extending over nearly 21 months. The young elephant sucks with its mouth, and not, as was formerly supposed, with its trunk. Elephants are polygamous, associating together in con siderable herds, under the guidance of a single leader, whom they implicitly follow, and whose safety, when menaced, they are eager to secure. These herds often do great damage to rice and other grain fields in cultivated districts, trampling under foot what they cannot eat. A slight fence is, however, generally sufficient to prevent their inroads, the elephant regarding all such structures with the greatest suspicion, connecting them probably, in some way, with snares and pitfalls. At times this usually inoffensive animal is subject to fits of temporary fury, and an elephant iu &quot;must,&quot; as this frenzied condition is termed, is regarded as the most dangerous of animals. When an elephant, from whatever cause, leaves the herd to which it belongs, it is not allowed .to join the ranks of another, but ever after leads a solitary life. Those individuals are known as &quot; rogues;&quot; being soured in temper by exclusion from the society of their kind, they become exceedingly ferocious, attacking without provocation whatever crosses their path. FIG. 1. African Elephant (Elephas africanus). (From specimen in Zoological Gardens, London.) There are two existing species of elephants the African and the Asiatic. The African Elephant (Elephas africanus) differs in so many important particulars from the Asiatic form as to have been placed by many naturalists, and ap parently with sufficient reason, in a separate genus Loxodon. The enamel on the crown of its molar teeth is arranged across the surface in lozenge-shaped figures, instead of the nearly parallel transverse ridges of the other species. Its ears are enormously large, completely cover ing the shoulder when thrown back ; they have been known to measure 3| feet in length and 2 feet in width. Its forehead also is convex, and its back concave, while in the other the forehead is almost flat, and the back convex. The African elephant ranges over the whole of Africa south of the Sahara, with the exception of the Cape, where it formerly abounded, but from which it has been driven by man. In height it somewhat exceeds the Asiatic species, although never standing more than 11 feet high at the shoulders. Its tusks are also heavier, and occur in both sexes, although iu the female they are comparatively small, a male tusk usually weighing about 50 Ib, while that of the female rarely exceeds 10 Ib, &quot; The tusks of (he African elephant,&quot; says Baker, &quot; are seldom alike. As a man uses his right hand in preference to his left, so the elephant works with a particular tusk which is termed by the traders el-hadam (the servant) ; this is naturally more worn than the other, and is usually about 10 B) lighter.&quot; They roam among the long grass on the open plains, in the neighbour hood of water, of which both species are excessively fond, feeding on the leaves and roots of trees, and using their tusks to overthrow such as are too strong to be pulled down by their powerful trunks. The traveller just quoted states that he has observed trees 4 feet G inches in circum ference, and about 30 feet high, thus uprooted. He was assured by the natives, however, that in such cases the elephants assisted each other. Until comparatively recent times the natives of Africa hunted the elephant exclusively for its flesh, of which they are particularly fond ; but since the arrival of the Arab traders, the natives, who formerly regarded the tusks as mere bones, and left them to rot along with the rest of the skeleton, have discovered the value of ivory, and this has led to the destruction of these animals on a much larger scale than formerly. England alone imports 1,200,000 Bb of ivory annually, in order to obtain which, the lives of probably 30,000 elephants are sacrificed ; and it has been estimated by a recent writer on this subject that, iu order to supply the demand for ivory throughout the world, at least 100,000 individuals are annually slain. As the elephant is the slowest breeder of all known animals, should the slaughter continue on its present scale, the total extinction of tusk -bearing elephants Fid. 2. Asiatic Elephant (Elephas indicus). is. probably not far distant. The African elephant was in ancient times domesticated by the Carthaginians, who em ployed it in their wars with Rome. It was this species which crossed the Alps with Hannibal, and which the Romans, after the conquest of Carthage, made use of in war, iu the amphitheatre, and in military pageants. No African race has since succeeded in reclaiming this highly in telligent and naturally docile animal a fact often quoted in proof of the general inferiority of the negro race. Although common in Europe during the ascendency of the Roman empire, for centuries after it was almost unknown ; and it was only in 18G5 that the Zoological Society of London obtained a pair for their gardens. These are still living. The Asiatic Elephant (Elephas indicus) inhabits the wooded parts of the Oriental region, from India and Ceylon eastward to the frontiers of China, and to Sumatra and Borneo. It chiefly abounds in the jungle, and probably on this account is less active and fierce than the African form. It is not, however, partial, as was at one time supposed, to low grounds and sultry heat, abounding, in India and Ceylon, principally among the hilly and even mountainous districts.