people flocked in vast numbers to behold so great a novelty on its arrival." Among the Close Rolls one of about that date is extant, in which the sheriff of Kent is ordered to proceed to Dover in person to arrange in what manner the king's elephant might be most conveniently brought over, and to provide a ship and other things necessary to convey it; and directing that, if the king's mariners judged it practicable, it should be brought to London by water Another order was shortly afterwards issued to the sheriffs of London, commanding them to cause to be built, without delay, in the Tower of London, a house forty feet in length, and twenty in breadth, for the king's elephant, and directing that it should be so strongly constructed, that whenever there should be need, it might be adapted to, and used for, other purposes. Matthew Paris would find, even in the present time, that the elephant is a great object of interest and curiosity to the "multitude," who, a short time since, flocked in such vast numbers to witness the spectacle of a car drawn by two of these noble creatures through the streets of Lon

don, that the police were compelled to divert the intended course of the novel procession, from a fear of the consequences that might ensue.

"There is," as Bingley remarks, "scarcely any animal in the creation that has, at different times, occupied so much the attention of mankind as the elephant. Formed in a peculiar manner for the service of man in the hot climates, he is endowed with every requisite for usefulness. He is strong, active, and laborious; and such are his mildness and sagacity, that he can be trained to almost any service which an animal is capable of performing." He is serviceable as a beast of draught, pulling with ease what it would take ten horses to move. Another power which the animal possesses, and one which is unknown to the horse and ox, is that of pushing; and if his forehead be protected by a leathern pad, he will push forward weights which, perhaps, he could not draw.

The living species of elephants are two, the Indian and the African; their specific distinctions consist in the shape of the head, the size of the ears, and the formation of the tusk. The most

striking difference between the Asiatic and African elephant is the size of the ears.

In the former they are moderate, in the latter enormous, and cover the shoulders. In the cabinet of the King of Denmark there is the ear of an elephant shot at the Cape of Good Hope in 1675, which is three feet and a half long, by two feet and a half wide. Mr. Pringle informs us, that it is not uncommon in Southern Africa to see the natives using the ear of an elephant as a sort of truck, upon which they drag manure and other loads. The elephant is commonly believed to be without teeth; they are not visible. He has no cutting teeth in either jaw in front; but he is furnished with four most powerful grinders, each weighing seventeen pounds, that enable him to bruise the vegetables on which he feeds. As these decay, a fresh set replaces them, and the elephant to the end of his life obtains a new set of teeth as the old ones become unfit for the mastication of food. The tusks of the elephant correspond with the canine teeth in other quadrupeds. In a full-grown male elephant they sometimes extend eight feet from the sockets, and

weigh as much as 113 lbs. ; but those of the female are short. They are used as a mode of defence, and probably as a support when sleeping in a standing position, by placing them against a tree. An example of this was given by the elephant of Louis XIV. For the last five years of his life he did not lie down till he was near death, and he employed his tusks in making two cavities in the two faces of a stone buttress which projected from the wall of his cell, and these cavities served him for a support when he slept, his tusks being fixed in them. The substance of which they are composed, called ivory, is well known. The proboscis or trunk of the elephant commands the admiration of all who witness its admirable powers. Mr. Rose tell us, "that even the rude Caffre, when he kills an elephant, approaches the trunk with a superstitious awe, and cutting it off, solemnly inters it, repeatedly exclaiming, 'The elephant is a great lord, and the trunk is his hand!""

This singular organ is an extension of the canals of the nose; it is very long, composed of a number of cartilaginous rings, and divided on the inside

throughout. At the lower end it is furnished with. a kind of movable finger, and it is so strong, as to be capable of breaking off large branches from trees. Through this the animal smells and breathes; and by means of it he conveys food to his mouth. Though his great size requires that his provender should be in large quantity, and renders a plentiful supply of the commoner vegetable productions necessary to him, yet his palate is pleased with dainties. For this reason the strength and the minute touch of his proboscis are equally available in the collection of his daily supplies.

If he meets with long herbage he twists his trunk spirally round the roots, and crops them off. If the object is difficult to reach, he curls his trunk, and in this way, elevating himself upon his hinder legs, he pulls down the tall branches of trees. As an organ of touch, the trunk of the elephant is exquisitely fine. Williamson, in his "Oriental Field Sports," mentions, that "elephants sometimes become blind, and under that privation the poor animal can not only collect its food, and discriminate as to its quality, by this wonderful