imposing, fascinating, and astonishing of all
animals.

[Illustration: Fig. 6.--The Indian elephant (_Elephas maximus_ or
_indicus_). Observe the small size of its ear-flap.]

At the present day there are two species only of elephant existing on
the earth's surface. These are the Indian (Fig. 6) (called _Elephas
indicus_, but sometimes called _Elephas maximus_ on account of the
priority which belongs to that designation, although the Indian
elephant is smaller than the other), and the African (Fig. 7) (called
_Elephas Africanus_). In the wild state their area of occupation has
become greatly diminished within historic times. The Indian elephant
was hunted in Mesopotamia in the twelfth century B.C., and Egyptian
drawings of the eighteenth dynasty show elephants of this species
brought as tribute by Syrian vassals. To-day the Indian elephant is
confined to certain forests of Hindoostan, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam.
The African elephant extended 100 years ago all over South Africa, and
in the days of the Carthaginians was found near the Mediterranean
shore, whilst in prehistoric (late Pleistocene) times it existed in
the south of Spain and in Sicily. Now it is confined to the more
central and equatorial zone of Africa, and is yearly receding before
the incursions and destructive attacks of civilised man.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.--The African elephant (_Elephas Africanus_)
with rider mounted on its back. The drawing is an enlarged
representation of an ancient Carthaginian coin.]

At no great distance of time before the historic period, earlier,
indeed, than the times of the herdsmen who used polished stone
implements and raised great stone circles, namely, in the late
Pleistocene period, we find that there existed all over Europe and
North Asia and the northern part of America another elephant very
closely allied to the Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward
curvature of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one
another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the body. This is
"the mammoth," the remains of which are found in every river valley in
England, France and Germany, and of which whole carcases are
frequently discovered in Northern Siberia, preserved from decay in the
frozen river gravels and "silt." The ancient cave-men of France used
the fresh tusks of the mammoth killed on the spot for their carvings
and engravings, and from their time to this the ivory of the mammoth
has been, and remains,