which it is absent in
the males as well as in the females. The mammoth was a near cousin of
the Indian elephant, and inhabited cold uplands and the fringes of
sub-Arctic forests, on which he fed. His tusks were very large, and
curved first outward and then inward at the tips. They would not have
served for heavy digging, and probably were used for forcing a way
through the forest and as a protection to the face and trunk.

The trunk of the elephant was called "a hand" by old writers, and it
seems to have acted in the development of the elephant's intelligence
in the same way as man's hand has in regard to his mental growth,
though in a less degree. The Indian elephant has a single tactile and
grasping projection (sometimes called "a finger") placed above between
the two nostrils at the end of the trunk; the African elephant has one
above and one below. I have seen the elephant pick up with this
wonderful trunk with equal facility a heavy man and then a threepenny
piece.

The intelligence of the elephant is sometimes exaggerated by reports
and stories; sometimes it is not sufficiently appreciated. It is not
fair to compare the intelligence of the elephant with that of the
dog--bred and trained by man for thousands of years. So far as one can
judge, there is no wild animal, excepting the higher apes, which
exhibits so much and such varied intelligence as the elephant. It
appears that from early tertiary times (late Eocene) the ancestors of
elephants have had large brains, whilst, when we go back so far as
this, the ancestors of nearly all other animals had brains a quarter
of the size (and even less in proportion to body-size) which their
modern representatives have. Probably the early possession of a large
brain at a geological period when brains were as a rule small is what
has enabled the elephants not only to survive until to-day, but to
spread over the whole world (except Australia), and to develop an
immense variety and number of individuals throughout the tertiary
series in spite of their ungainly size. It is only the yet bigger
brain of man which (would it were not so!) is now at last driving this
lovable giant, this vast compound of sagacity and strength, out of
existence. The elephant--like man standing on his hind legs--has a
wide survey of things around him owing to his height. He can take time
to allow of cerebral intervention in his actions since he is so large
that he has little cause to be afraid and to