parallel some distance, and then diverge,
which would lead one to suppose that the animal inhabited open
country, for such a formation would be extremely uncomfortable in
thick forest. That tusks of such magnitude are not found nowadays
is probably due to the fact that the elephant has more enemies, the
most formidable of all being man, which prevent his reaching the
great age of those of the fossil periods. It may be said, by those
who disbelieve in the extermination of this animal, that, as
elephants have provided ivory for several thousand years, they will
go on doing so; but I would remind them that in olden days ivory was
an article in limited demand, being used chiefly by kings and great
nobles; it is only of late years that it has increased more than a
hundredfold. Our forefathers used buck-horn handled knives, and they
were without the thousand-and-one little articles of luxury which
are now made of ivory; even the requirements of the ancient world
drove the elephant away from the coasts, where Solomon, and later
still the Romans, got their ivory; and now the girdle round the
remaining herds in Central Africa is being narrowed day by day. Mr.
Sanderson is of opinion that it is not decreasing in India under the
present restrictions, but there is no doubt the reckless slaughter
of them in Ceylon has greatly diminished their numbers. Sir Emerson
Tennent states that the Government reward was claimed for 3,500
destroyed in part of the northern provinces alone in three years
prior to 1848, and between 1851 and 1856, 2000 were killed in the
southern provinces.

_GENUS ELEPHAS--THE ELEPHANT_.

In the writings of older naturalists this animal, so singular in its
construction, will be found grouped with the horse, rhinoceros,
hippopotamus, tapir, coney, and pig, under the name of pachydermata,
the seventh order of Cuvier, but these are now more appropriately
divided, as I have said before, into three different orders--Proboscidea,
the elephants; Hyracoidea, the conies; and the rest come under Ungulata.
Apparently singular as is the elephant in its anatomy, it bears traces
of affinity to both Rodentia and Ungulata. The composition of its
massive tusks or incisors, and also of its grinders, resembles that of
the Rodents. The tusks grow from a persistent pulp, which forms new
ivory coated with enamel, but the grinders are composed of a number of
transverse perpendicular plates, or vertical laminae of dentine,
enveloped