ELEPHANT, the largest existing land animal. Its ordinary height at the shoulder is about 8 feet, but sometimes exceeds 10 feet. The weight of a large elephant is about five tons, the body being very bulky in proportion to its height. To sustain this weight it is furnished with limbs of colossal thick ness and strength, which are also re markably straight, each bone resting vertically on that beneath it. The flexi bility of these limbs is sufficient to per mit elephants to run with a speed often greater than that of the best horse. Elephants live in herds, each having a leader who gives the alarm in case of danger and decides what direction to take in escaping from an enemy. When the leader is the special mark for the hunter's attack, because he is the larg est and has the finest tusks, the rest of the herd do their utmost to protect him. The elephant is generally one of the most inoffensive of animals, though in a state of domestication it shows a power both of remembering and resenting an injury. The favorite haunts of wild elephants are in the depths of forests— particularly in mountainous regions.
Only two existing species of elephants are certainly known, the Indian (Ele phas hulicus) and the African (Ele phas Africanus).
The amount of daily food necessary for the elephant in a state of domestica tion may be stated, on an average, at about 200 pounds in weight. The ele phant first became known in Europe from its employment in the wars of the East. Elephants have been taught to cut and thrust with a kind of scimetar carried in the trunk, and it was formerly usual for them to be sent into battle covered with armor and bearing towers on their backs, which contained warriors. But the principal use of the elephant in war is for carrying baggage and for dragging guns. Elephants are used in the East for carrying persons on their backs, a number being seated together in a howdah, while the driver (mahout) sits on the elephant's neck, directing it by his voice and by a small goad. Elephants have always a conspicuous place in the great processions and state displays of Asiatic princes, and white