AT1HCAN ELEPHANT. This species (E/cpitax Africanust is confined to Africa. and until the settlement of South and East Africa during the last half of the nineteenth century it ranged over eery part of the continent south of the ;-•;thara and Nile deserts, in surprising abundance. It disappeared south of the Zambezi and from near the coast as the century closed. hut throughout the equatorial regions it is still numerous and is likely to remain in fair numbers. as European governments have agreed upon various in cluding a close season for females, and an ex port duty on the tusks, by which it is hoped to prevent rapid extermination. This species is frequently 10 feet in height, the males surpass ing the average height of the Asiatic species. but the female- are ,maller. Both sexes have tusks, a fact which contributes to the diminution of the species, as the females are as liable as the males to be killed for the sake of their ivory. The crowns of the molar teeth exhibit a lozenge pattern of grintlimg surfaces and the teeth differ in structure from those of the elephant. There are but three toes on the hind feet.
This elephant was familiar to the ancient Egyptians, and is believed to have been used by them in war at an early period. Those which Hannibal took with him upon his famous expedi tion against Rome are presumed. rather than known, to have been of this kind. but pos sibly were Asiatic. At any rate African de phants were never, or very rarely. seen in Europe from the show days of Imperial Rome until about IMO, since which perhaps 100 have been taken there alive, nearly all of which soon died of disease. There seems to be no reason why the African elephant may not be tamed and -educated as well as the Asiatic species. That the African savages, who frequently might cap ture calves, do not rear them is to he explained not only by the animal's uselessness to them. but by the impossibility, in the ease of most tribes, of keeping the calf alive until it is able to quit a milk diet and live upon grass and lea yes. This elephant, then, is of service to mankind only as the source of nearly all the living ivory that comes to the market.