The Cambridge Natural History Part 17

FIG. 118.--Indian Elephant. _Elephas indicus._ 1/54. (After Sir Samuel Baker.)

This species does not stand so high at the shoulder as the African; its back is more rounded in the middle. The trunk has but one pointed tip; there are five nails on the fore- and four on the hind-feet. As this species comes from India and the East, it has been longer as well as better known than the African form. Thus many of the stories and legends that have congregated round Elephants apply really to this form. As is well known, the Indian Elephant is much used as a beast of burden, and for other purposes where its huge strength renders it invaluable. But its great drawback as a servant of man is its great independability. On the one hand we have furious, vicious, and generally unreliable {224} Elephants, and on the other perfectly docile creatures, who obey the slightest hint from their driver. Huge though the Elephant is, it is frequently a timid beast.

Sir Samuel Baker relates how one which he was riding fairly bolted at the sight of a Hare. To {225} be bolted with by an Elephant is far from pleasing, though a rather exciting event. It makes for the nearest jungle at once, being, much more than the African species, an inhabitant of forest. And in rushing through the dense undergrowth, the occupiers of the Elephant's back are apt to be swept off or cut to pieces by innumerable thorns.

Elephants, no doubt of the Indian species, were used by the Persians in battle, and from fifteen which were captured at the battle of Arbela some notes were drawn up by Aristotle. In stating that the animal reaches an age of 200 years, the naturalist and philosopher was probably not very far out.

The mode of Elephant-catching as related by Aristotle is that pursued at the present day. Then, as now, tame Elephants were made use of as decoys.

Pliny,[142] who was apt to confound fact and fiction in a somewhat inseparable tangle, had something to say about Elephants, both Indian and African. Serpents, he thought, were their chief enemies, which slew them by coiling round them and thrusting their heads into the trunk, and so stopping respiration. In Europe Elephants were first seen in the year B.C.

280. Pyrrhus used them in his invasion, and copying his example the Romans themselves learnt to use Elephants. The first Elephant seen in England arrived in the year 1257, presented by the King of France to Henry III. It was kept in the Tower (for long afterwards a menagerie), and died at twelve years of age. Much use of the Elephant has been made in symbols. We have spoken of the African Elephant on Carthaginian coins as an emblem of eternity. The Oriental Elephant resting on the back of a tortoise and supporting the world is the same idea; and it is instructive to note that remains have been found in the Siwalik Hills of a tortoise which would have been actually big enough to support the creature, even "Jumbo," who weighed 6 tons. Another symbol is that of an Elephant upon whose back is a child with arrows; this occurs on a medal of the Emperor Philip. It can perhaps hardly signify the eternity of a strong human feeling!

The intelligence of the Elephant has been both exaggerated and minimised.

Perhaps the most elaborate attempt to endow the beast with unusual mental perceptions is that of Aelian, who related that an Elephant carefully watching his keeper, wrote after him with his trunk letters upon a board.

That the animal does {226} possess a good deal of brains, seems to be shown by the way in which a well-trained animal will obey the slightest sign of the mahout in India. According to Sir Samuel Baker, localities which produce in abundance particular kinds of fruit are remembered, as well as the time at which the fruit will be at its best. Stories of revenge, which are numerous enough, attest, so far as their data are to be accepted as accurate, the power of memory possessed by the Elephant.

In spite of their longevity, however, Elephants, unlike Rome, have not been built for eternity. We can only find two living species; but in past times Elephants were very numerous. They commenced, so far as we know, in the Miocene.

The existing forms are known in a fossil, or at least sub-fossil state, from diluvial deposits; and it is interesting to note that the African Elephant had formerly a wider range than now. Its bones (described as _E.

priscus_) have been met with in Spain and Sicily.

One of the best known of completely-extinct Elephants is the Mammoth, _E.

primigenius_. This great Elephant in most respects more nearly approached the existing Indian Elephant. The teeth have quite as numerous plates. The tusks were enormous, reaching a maximum length of 15 feet; they were much curved upwards as well as outwards. A large tusk weighs as much as 250 lbs.

The Mammoth was of exceedingly wide range. Not only was it found in various parts of Europe, but it was especially abundant in Siberia, as is exemplified by the fact that for the last two hundred years as many or more than 100 pairs of tusks annually have been sold from that region. It also occurred in America together with forms at least not far removed from it, such as _E. columbia.n.u.s_. Mammoths have been more than once found as entire carcases in the frozen soil of Siberia. The first was discovered in the year 1799, and rescued some years later for the St. Petersburg Museum. This example showed that the Mammoth, unlike existing Elephants, was covered with thick wool mingled with long and more bristly hairs of some 10 inches in length. The softer wool formed a kind of mane beneath the neck, which hung down as far as the knees. Another carcase was discovered later by Lieut. Benkendorf, who did not save it, but was nearly swept along with it into the sea by a flood. These creatures died in the position in which they were found by being bogged when in search of vegetation or water. {227}

How primeval man, with his inferior weapons, slew the Mammoth is not easy to understand; but that they were contemporaneous is clearly shown by a.s.sociated remains, and by the notorious sketch of the Mammoth on a piece of its own ivory, in which curved tusks and a forehead like that of an Indian Elephant are plainly to be seen. Although it was only so recently as the year 1799 that an example of this great creature was actually studied on the spot, and removed to St. Petersburg, the existence of Mammoths and of ivory is a matter of much more ancient knowledge. M. Trouessart relates[143] that fossil ivory was known to the Greeks. Theophrastus spoke of ivory imbedded in the soil, and the tusks were recovered by the Chinese.

It is a curious fact that the Chinese described and figured the Mammoth as a kind of gigantic Rat. The likeness between the elephantine molar and that of Rodents has been commented upon; but the existence of its tusks below the level of the ground led the Chinese Natural Historians to consider that the ways of life of the Mammoth were those of the Mole. As to the carcases themselves, the Chinese said that the flesh was cold, but very healthy to eat. This expression can hardly be explained, except upon the view that fresh carcases were known to that people long before they were known to us of the Western world. The value of the Mammoth ivory was known to antiquity; the famous Haroun-al-Raschid gave to King Charlemagne not only a pair of living Elephants, but a "horn of Licorne," which seems undoubtedly to have been a name for the tusks of the Mammoth. For in an account of the sacred treasures of Saint Denis, published in the year 1646, the author states this to be the fact.

The causes of the disappearance of the Mammoth are not easy to understand.

Some held that it was a naked animal like the existing Elephants, and that the lowering of the temperature in Siberia proved fatal; it is, of course, now certain that it was clothed with dense woolly hair. Along with the bogged corpses of the great pachyderm, numerous trunks of pine-trees have been found, together with a.s.sociated remains of other animals now extinct in that neighbourhood. Thus it is plain that Siberia was once covered by mighty forests, through which the Mammoth roamed. The decay of these forests, upon whose branches the Elephant fed, as is attested by the remains of pine leaves found {228} in the interstices of its teeth, was the signal for the disappearance of their most colossal inhabitant.

The large number of remains of this and of other extinct species of _Elephas_ in this country gave rise to the supposition that they were Elephants brought over by Caesar to aid in the subjugation of these islands. The Rev. J. Coleridge (father of the poet) pointed out that though Caesar in his _Commentaries_ made no mention of any such importation of Elephants, a pa.s.sage in the _Stratagems_ of Polyaenus expressly mentions that Ca.s.sivelaunus was confronted by the Romans with an Elephant clad in a coat of mail, by whose aid the crossing of the Thames was effected. At the time that attention was called to this (1757) it was not popular to hint at the possibility of fossils. So that fact, conveniently historical, served to explain away a difficulty. It is remarkable that the Elephant, common enough of course in Asiatic monuments, actually occurs in English architecture. Mr. Watkins, from whose interesting work (_Natural History of the Ancients_) a good many of the facts detailed here are drawn, tells us that the church of Ottery St. Mary has an Elephant's head sculptured on one of its pillars. The same ornament appears in Gosberton Church, Lincolnshire. Whether this has anything to do with a reminiscence of formerly existing Elephants is a hard question to answer. In this figure of an Elephant the trunk has a spiral representation, and the trunk of an Elephant is believed by some to be intended by the common "so-called Pictish ornamentation" in Scotland; this spiral alone is to be seen constantly. If it is a reduction of an Elephant to its simplest terms, it is highly interesting as an almost undoubted survival of remembrance of Elephants. For at such a period we cannot use the memories of Crusaders or others who may have visited the East to explain the facts. The sculptured Elephants' heads might conceivably be so explained.

The name Mammoth, thinks Mr. Watkins, may be derivable from the Arabic word Behemoth. He quotes a writer, who first described the beast in 1694, as using the two words indifferently. The Arabs, moreover, were then as they are now great ivory traders; and in the ninth and the two succeeding centuries explored the confines of Siberia, as they now do the forests of Africa, for ivory. The "Behemoth" of Job "eateth gra.s.s as an ox.... He moveth his tail like a cedar" (the Hippopotamus has a much more {229} stumpy appendage). "Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not" is surely much more suggestive of the copious draughts of an Elephant than the possibly equally copious but not so visible libations of a Hippopotamus.

The most ancient of the true Elephants (genus _Elephas_) is _E.

meridionalis_. It is of the African type, _i.e._ the plates of the molar teeth are not abundant, and are not so many as in the existing _E.

africa.n.u.s_. It seems to have been one of the largest of Elephants, standing 4 metres high. Its remains are abundant in Europe, and are known also from England. Like this species _E. antiquus_ is also of the African type. It was contemporary with man. Certain dwarf or "pony" races found in caves in Malta, and called _Elephas melitensis_ or _E. falconeri_, are believed to belong to this species. Mr. Leith Adams, who described these[144] remains, placed them in two dwarf species called by the names used above, and found a.s.sociated with them a larger form, which he referred to _E. antiquus_. The existence of these animals in Malta seems to argue at least its former larger dimensions, and the presence of more abundant fresh water. The remarkable swimming capabilities of the Elephant do not necessarily imply either a former absence of land connexion or, on the other hand, its existence. Nor as a third possibility can it be suggested that the dwarf size argues an island of limited dimensions, when we bear in mind the huge tortoises of the Galapagos and some other islands. It is important to notice that Elephants of the African type (_Loxodon_) were not formerly absent from India. _E. planifrons_ was one of these.

The genus _SteG.o.don_ is so called from the fact that the molar teeth, seen in longitudinal section, present a series of roof-shaped folds, the interstices between which are not, or are, imperfectly filled up with the cement which in _Elephas_ reduces the surface of the teeth to a level plane. This genus is exclusively Asiatic, and is Miocene to Pleistocene in time range. The number of ridges on the molars is small, not more than two.

The incisors (tusks) have no enamel; the skeleton generally is like that of _Elephas_, between which and _Mastodon_ the present genus is intermediate.

Among the four or five species is _S. ganesa_ (called after the Indian Elephant-headed divinity), with tusks 10 feet long, to be seen at the British Museum of Natural History. {230}

The last genus of the family Elephantidae is _Mastodon_, so called from the structure of the molar teeth. These are provided with but few transverse ridges, not more than five, so that their structure is intermediate between those of _Dinotherium_ and those of _SteG.o.don_. Between the ridges are sometimes isolated, boss-like protuberances (whence the name of _Mastodon_), produced by a subdivision of the ridges. There is either but little or no cement between the ridges. This genus differs from nearly all other Elephantidae by the possession of milk molars, which occasionally persist throughout life, the permanent dent.i.tion in those cases being a mixture of milk and permanent teeth, as has been (erroneously) stated of the Hedgehog.[145]

The tusks (incisors) are sometimes present in both jaws, and as they have, during youth at any rate, a coating of enamel, the likeness to the chisel-shaped incisors of Rodents is patent. In connexion with the implantation of incisors in the lower jaw, many species have a prolongation of the bones of that part of the skeleton. In the bones, generally, there is not very much difference from _Elephas_, but the forehead is a little less p.r.o.nounced. The genus existed from the Miocene and became extinct in the Pleistocene. It was nearly world-wide in range, being known from all four continents. Naturally with this very wide range was a.s.sociated a large number of species. Zittel enumerates no less than thirty-two.

This genus is the only one of the Elephantidae which extended its range into South America, where the remains of two species occur. The bones of these great Elephants have attracted attention for some centuries. They were often held to be the bones of giants (as they actually were!), and in one case were ascribed to a deceased monarch, Teutobochus. The American Indians considered that equally gigantic men lived who were able to combat these great Proboscideans. There are legends of the Mastodons as living animals, which is quite probable, considering their geological age. There is a curious parallelism between the legends of two such widely-separated localities as North America and Greece. Buffon relates how among the Indians of Canada there was a belief that the Great Being destroyed both Mastodons and men of equal proportions, with thunderbolts. With this we may perhaps compare the story of the destruction of Typhoeus by Zeus, who {231} also used thunderbolts. One of the giants was not slain, but was compelled to stand and bear up the heavens. Atlas holds thus the position of the Elephant supporting the globe of Indian mythology.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIG. 119.--_Dinotherium giganteum._ Side view of skull, 1/15th natural size. Miocene, Germany. (After Kaup.)

The genus _Dinotherium_, sole representative of the family DINOTHERIIDAE, differs in a number of important particulars from the true Elephants. In the Elephants, if there is but a single pair of incisors, these are found in the upper jaw; in _Dinotherium_ there is apparently but a single pair, but these are implanted in the lower jaw, the symphysis of which is much prolonged and greatly bent downwards, so that the tusks emerge at right angles to the long axis of the head, and are even bent backwards. The molar teeth are five in number on each side of each jaw and are bi- or tri-lophodont, not unlike those of the Tapir. There is no cement in the valleys between the ridges of these teeth, and there is a regular succession, the premolars being two and the molars three.[146] All the teeth are in use at the same time, {232} their small size enabling them to be accommodated in the jaw together. The skull of _Dinotherium_ is lower than that of _Elephas_ or _Mastodon_. The bones of the skeleton generally are like those of _Elephas_.

Though a suggestion of marsupial bones attached to the pelvis has been discredited, there is no doubt that _Dinotherium_ occupies the most primitive position among the Proboscidea; but at the same time it cannot be regarded as the ancestor of Elephants, as it is so much specialised in various ways. The incisors for one thing forbid this way of looking at the creature. It is an ancient genus found in beds of Miocene age in Europe and Asia. It is not known from America. The creature was larger than any Elephant. Eighteen feet in length has been a.s.signed to it. The enormous weight of the lower jaw and tusks seems to argue that it was at least partially aquatic in habit, and that it may have used these tusks for grubbing up aquatic roots or for mooring itself to the bank. At first there were naturalists who considered it as an ally of the Manatee, and the skull is not unsuggestive of that of the Sirenia.

_Pyrotherium_ has been referred to the Proboscidea; but our knowledge of that form is limited to a few teeth from Patagonian rocks of an uncertain age.[147] They are simple bilophodont molars, very like those of _Dinotherium_. A tusk has been found in the neighbourhood of these teeth which may possibly belong to the same animal; but it is uncertain.

SUB-ORDER 7. HYRACOIDEA.

This group of small mammals contains only one well-marked genus which is usually named _Hyrax_, although _Procavia_ seems to be the accurate term.

Popularly these creatures are known as Coneys. They have a singular resemblance to Rodents, the short ears and much reduced tail, besides the squatting att.i.tude adopted, contributing to this merely skin-deep likeness.

They agree with other Ungulates in the structure of the molar teeth, which are much like those of _Rhinoceros_; in the absence of a clavicle; in the absence of an acromion; in the reduction of the digits of the limbs to four digits in the ma.n.u.s and three in the pes. On the {233} other hand they differ from most Ungulates in the incisors growing from persistent pulps, a point in which they resemble the Rodentia. The m.u.f.fle also is split as in those animals. The Hyracoidea are peculiar in the fact that in addition to the caec.u.m at the junction of the small and large intestines, there are a pair of caeca (bird-like in being paired) some way down the large intestine. The dorsal vertebrae are unusually numerous, 22. The adult dent.i.tion according to Woodward,[148] who has recently examined the matter, is I 1/2 C (1/0) Pm 4/4 M 3/3, while the milk dent.i.tion is I 3/2 C 1/1 Pm 4/4.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIG. 120.--Cape Hyrax. _Hyrax capensis._ 1/8.

The inclusion of the canine of the permanent set of teeth in brackets signifies that it is the milk canine which occasionally persists. It should further be remarked about the teeth that they are both hypselodont and brachyodont, the extremes being connected by intermediate forms. Another peculiarity of the genus is the dorsal gland, which is covered with hair of a different colour to that covering the body generally. This is present in all species.

The genus _Hyrax_ (the most recent authority on the subject, Mr. Oldfield Thomas,[149] only allows one genus) is limited in its range to Ethiopian Africa and to Arabia, including Palestine, It does not reach Madagascar.

Mr. Thomas allows fourteen species with two or three sub-species. {234}

Some of the Coneys live in rocky ground, while others, formerly placed in the genus _Dendrohyrax_, frequent trees, in holes in which they sleep. The Coney of the Scriptures is familiar, who is "exceeding wise," though a "feeble folk." But the further observation that he "cheweth the cud but divided not the hoof," is obviously entirely wrong. As to the wisdom, it is said that this beast is too wary to be taken in traps; while the suggestion of chewing the cud is, according to Canon Tristram, to be interpreted in the light of a habit of working and moving its jaws which the animal has.

The traveller Bruce kept one in captivity to see if it did really chew the cud, and found that it did!

{235}

CHAPTER X

UNGULATA (_continued_)--PERISSODACTYLA (ODD-TOED UNGULATES)--LITOPTERNA

SUB-ORDER 8. PERISSODACTYLA

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIG. 121.--Bones of the ma.n.u.s A, of Tapir (_Tapirus indicus_). 1/5. B, of Rhinoceros (_Rhinoceros sumatrensis_). 1/5. C, of Horse (_Equus caballus_). 1/8. _c_, Cuneiform; _l_, lunar; _m_, magnum; _p_, pisiform; _R_, radius; _s_, scaphoid; _td_, trapezoid; _tm_, trapezium; _u_, unciform; _U_, ulna; _II-V_, second to fifth digits; _V_ in B, and _II_ and _IV_ in C, represented by rudimentary metacarpals. (From Flower's _Osteology_.)

These Ungulates derive their name, which is that given by the late Sir Richard Owen, from the fact that the middle digit of the hand and foot is pre-eminent. As will be seen from Fig. 121, the axis of {236} the limb pa.s.ses through the third finger, which is larger than any of the others, and is symmetrical in itself. In this the present group contrasts with the Artiodactyla, where the axis is not "mesaxonic," but where there are two digits, on either side of the axis, which are symmetrical with each other.

This arrangement of the limbs is highly characteristic, but appears to be not quite universal. In the t.i.tanotheres, which form a group of the Perissodactyles, the fore-limbs are not quite accurately mesaxonic. Nor on the other hand can all Ungulates which show the Perissodactyle condition be safely included in the present group. The ancient Condylarthra and the Litopterna show precisely the same state of affairs. But other features in their organisation lead to their separation from the Perissodactyles, of which, however, the Condylarthra are probably ancestors. The Litopterna on the other hand, which possess even one-toed members like _Equus_, are believed to represent a case of parallelism in development. The number of functional toes varies from four to one. In the ankle joint the astragalus either does not, or does only to a comparatively slight extent, articulate with the cuboid as well as with the navicular bone. Moreover the fibula when present does not as a rule articulate with the calcaneum. In the opposed group of Artiodactyles the precise reverse of these conditions obtains. It is usually stated as part of the definition of this group that they do not possess horns of the type of those met with in the Cervicornia and Cavicornia. But the strong bony bosses on the skull of many t.i.tanotheres, so curiously reminiscent of those of the not nearly related _Dinoceras_ and _Protoceras_, may well have supported horns of the Ox and Antelope pattern.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FIG. 122.--Bones of the ma.n.u.s of Camel (_Camelus bactria.n.u.s_). 1/8. _c_, Cuneiform; _l_, lunar; _m_, magnum; _R_, radius; _s_, scaphoid; _td_, trapezoid; _u_, unciform. (From Flower's _Osteology_.)

The teeth of the Perissodactyles are lophodont, more rarely bunodont. The selenodont Artiodactyle form of molar is not met with. The dental formula, moreover, is at least near the {237} complete one, the more modern forms as usual being the more deficient in numbers of teeth.

The dorso-lumbar vertebrae are as a rule twenty-three; but the extinct t.i.tanotheres are again an exception; for, at least in _t.i.tanotherium_, there are but twenty of these vertebrae--an Artiodactyle character. The femur has a third trochanter. There are so few recent Perissodactyles that an enumeration of the distinguishing characters of the viscera may very probably be useless for purposes of cla.s.sification. But the living genera at any rate are to be separated from the living Artiodactyles by the invariable simplicity of the stomach coupled with a very large and sacculated caec.u.m. The liver is simple and not much broken up into lobes, and the gall-bladder is always absent. The brain is well convoluted. The teats are in the inguinal region. The placenta in this group is of the diffused kind.