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 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 skull; 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 skull 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. This 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 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 skull 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 skull 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 skull 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 *." The opening in the skull called the 'great occipital foramen' is, in most quadrupeds, obliquely situated at the base of the skull, whereas in man it is nearly parallel with the horizon, and almost in the centre of the base of the skull. 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 when viewed in connexion with the ordinary position of the body. In man, who is designed to hold his body erect, this opening is situated, as has been stated, nearly in the centre of the base of the skull; the head, therefore, is supported nearly in a state of equilibrium on the spinal column. But in quadrupeds it is situated farther back in proportion as the face is elongated; and instead of being nearly parallel to the horizon, it * Ray's Wisdom of God.

forms a considerable angle with it. Hence the weight of the head in these animals is not sustained by the spine, but by a ligament of immense strength, which is either wanting in the human subject, or so inconsiderable as to have its existence disputed. This is the ligament of the nape, called by butchers the pax-wax; and the tough, strong, tendinous substance of which it is composed must be familiar to every one who has ever carved a neck of veal, and driven the knife against it. The head of an ox or a horse is a heavy weight acting at the end of a long lever, consequently with a great purchase; and from this force, thus advantageously applied, the bones of the neck would be in constant danger of dislocation, if they were not fortified by this strong tape. It is of immense size in the elephant, the vast weight of whose head, so much augmented by the enormous size of the tusks, sufficiently accounts for the increased magnitude of the suspensory ligament.

From

In the elephant, the facial line-that is, the vertical height of the skull, when compared with its horizontal length-is elevated by causes which have no connexion with the volume of the brain. this circumstance, the elephant acquires an appearance of great sagacity, in the eyes even of common observers; and the ancients, who attached great importance to the form of the skull, attributed to him the most exalted intellectual endowments. In the same way, the owl, whose skull is elevated without a proportionate volume of brain, was the emblem of Wisdom among the Greeks. Modern naturalists appear to have gone to the other extreme; and, finding that the volume of the brain bears no relation to the external appearance of the elephant's skull, are disposed to deny the quadruped that sagacity which he really does possess.

The proboscis, or trunk, of the elephant has com

VOL. II.

F

manded the admiration of all who have witnessed its remarkable powers. The child and the philosopher, the refined Roman and the rude African, have equally been struck with its astonishing union of flexibility and strength. Cicero calls it, by a bold figure of speech, the elephant's hand;"-Lucretius, even more expressively, describes it by the word "anguimanus, the snake-hand;-and the Caffre, who has learnt nothing from the poets and orators, but is taught by nature alone, when he kills an elephant approaches the trunk with a superstitious awe, and, cutting it off, solemnly inters it, repeatedly exclaiming, "The elephant is a great lord, and the trunk is his hand*."

Before we proceed to a description of the uses of the trunk, we shall present, as clearly as we can, a view of its anatomical construction. The most precise details of this somewhat complex subject are those given by Cuvier, upon his dissection of two elephantst.

The author of the "Anatomical account of the Elephant burnt at Dublin" was not allowed to dissect the trunk; but he says, "where the fire had entered upon it, I could distinctly perceive three orders of fibres; one obliquely and spirally descending; another spirally but crosswise descending; the third were strait fibres." He adds, "several of the motions of his proboscis might be performed by the afore-mentioned three distinct series of muscular fibres; as its contraction, motion up or down, to the right or to the left; but by what means he was able at pleasure to shoot it out, from a foot, upon any sudden occasion, to five feet long, and that with extraordinary force, I cannot clearly perceive." This is the problem which later anatomists have endea✩ *Rose's Southern Africa, p. 155.

† See Leçons d'Anatomie Comparée, tom, v.