er under foot, thereby soiling it and wasting its moisture; the
other, by opening it with the point of his tusk, performs the operation
with delicacy and apparent ease.

These, however, are trivial and almost accidental advantages: on the
other hand, owing to irregularities in their growth, the tusks are
sometimes an impediment in feeding[1]; and in more than one instance in
the Government studs, tusks which had so grown as to approach and cross
one another at the extremities, have had to be removed by the saw; the
contraction of space between them so impeding the free action of the
trunk as to prevent the animal from conveying branches to its mouth.[2]

[Footnote 1: Among other eccentric forms, an elephant was seen in 1844,
in the district of Bintenne, near Friar's-Hood Mountain, one of whose
tusks was so bent that it took what sailors term a "round turn," and
resumed its curved direction as before. In the Museum of the College of
Surgeons, London, there is a specimen, No. 2757, of a _spira_ tusk.]

[Footnote 2: Since the foregoing remarks were written relative to the
undefined use of tusks to the elephant, I have seen a speculation on the
same subject in Dr. HOLLAND'S "_Constitution of the Animal Creation, as
expressed in structural Appendages_;" but the conjecture of the author
leaves the problem scarcely less obscure than before. Struck with the
mere _supplemental_ presence of the tusks, the absence of all apparent
use serving to distinguish them from the essential organs of the
creature, Dr. HOLLAND concludes that their production is a process
incident, but not ancillary, to other important ends, especially
connected with the vital functions of the trunk and the marvellous
motive powers inherent to it; his conjecture is, that they are "a
species of safety valve of the animal oeconomy,"--and that "they owe
their development to the predominance of the senses of touch and smell,
conjointly with the muscular motions of which the exercise of these is
accompanied." "Had there been no proboscis," he thinks, "there would
have been no supplementary appendages,--the former creates the
latter."--Pp. 246, 271.]

It is true that in captivity, and after a due course of training, the
elephant discovers a new use for its tusks when employed in moving
stones and piling timber; so much so that a powerful one will raise and
carry on them a log of half a ton weight or more. One evening, whilst
riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towar