# Natural History Review/Series 2/Volume 2/Number 5/The Sumatran Elephant

VII.—The Sumatran Elephant. By Prof. H. Schlegel.
[The following translation from the Dutch, of a paper read by Prof. H. Schlegel, before the Royal Academy of Sciences of Holland, gives some further details respecting the Sumatran Elephant. This species was distinguished by Temminck some years ago, from the Elephant of Continental India, and proposed to be called Elephas sumatranus, but is hardly known to Naturalists of this country, except from the short notice of it communicated by the late Prince Charles Bonaparte, to one of the meetings of the Zoological Society of London, in 1849.— P. L. S.]
It is well known that Sumatra is the only island of the Indian Archipelago, where Elephants are found wild. Magelhaens has informed us, that the Elephants which he saw in Borneo, were introduced there, and that the animal is as little indigenous to that island as to Java.
So long as all living Elephants were treated of as belonging to one species, no one thought of comparing them together; and even after Cuvier had pointed out that the Elephant of Africa was very different from that of India, yet the opinion remained that all the Asiatic Elephants constituted but one species, though, as we shall presently show, the examples on which Cuvier established his Elephas africanus, differed specifically inter se. This idea, indeed, had gone so far that no one took the trouble to examine further the Elephants, which were brought alive from time to time from Sumatra to Java, and there kept in a half-domestic state, but people were content to refer them to the so-called Indian or Asiatic ELepnant, to which also, according to Cuvier, the Ceylonese Elephant belongs.
As, however, nothing is proved by a negative, and it is of great importance in a large Museum to obtain illustrations of the Faunas of different countries, I never ceased to urge my predecessor, Heer Temminck, to obtain specimens of the Sumatran Elephant for the Royal Museum. In August, 1845, I was fortunate enough to be gratified in this respect, several examples of Elephants from the district of Palembang in Sumatra, havmg been literally forwarded to the Museum, by his Excellency the Baron J. C. Baud—at that time Governor of the Dutch possessions in India. As I was unpacking them it appeared to me that they differed in several respects from the Elephant of Bengal. I occupied myself, therefore, with drawing up the characters of these two animals, compared with those of the African Elephant, and gave the results to Heer Temminck; ​which he afterwards published, calling the new species by the name Elphas sumatranus.
Since that period, several other examples of the Elephant living in Sumatra hare been brought to the Netherlands, so that I have had the opportunity of examining them. Amongst these were seven skeletons, of which three are still in the Royal Museum, several skulls, a young specimen of about three feet high also now in the Museum, and a living animal about six feet high now in the Zoological Gardens, at Amsterdam. All these specimens exhibited alike the characters, in which they differed from such examples of the so-called Indian Elephant, as I have examined.
I say the so-called Indian Elephant, because it has not yet been settled to which species we should apply this name. The name is generally given to that species of Elephant which has been brought from Continental India, and particularly, as it appears, from Bengal to Europe. This practice we have followed, but we must nevertheless guard ourselves from believing that this was exactly the species which Cuvier described under the name Elephas indicus. Cuvier assigns to his E. indicus twenty dorsal vertebræ, and consequently a like number of pairs of ribs. This would lead us to believe that Cuvier's determination was made upon a skeleton of the species which lives in Sumatra, and not upon one of the Bengalese species, which has only nineteen dorsal vertebræ and a like number of pairs of ribs.
The under jaw figured by Cuvier, pl. 5, fig. 3, seems, judging from the width of the laminæ of the teeth, to belong also to the Sumatran species.
The figure, pl. 1, fig. 1, is on the other hand apparently taken from a skeleton of the Bengalese Elephant, since it has only nineteen dorsal vertebræ and as many pairs of ribs, and this is perhaps also the case with the figure of the skull, pl. 4, fig. 1, and that of the under jaw, pl. 5, fig. 2.
The supposition that both the other skeletons, examined by Cuvier, belonged to the second Asiatic sort is fully established by what he says, pp. 66, 67.
He says here, that he has examined three skeletons of the Indian ​Elephant. One of these, which, according to Cuvier, belongs to the variety called Dauntelah by Corse, was sent to the Musaom at Leyden, in 1815, six years before the appearance of the second edition of the "Ossemens Fossiles," (see that ed. p. 66), where it exists at the present day. This skeleton agrees in all particulars with the Elephant of Bengal, having only nineteen dorsal vertebræ and the like number of ribs. The description which Cuvier gives of his Elephas indicus seems, therefore, to have been based exclusively upon his two other skeletons. Both of these, as he himself informs us, were from Ceylon. He tells us this, in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, (1806, p. 148), speaking of the male which he identifies with the variety, Mooknah of Corse; and he says the same (Oss. Foss. p. 67) of the female, which he considers as belonging to the variety Komarea of Corse, adding that these were the skeletons of two Elephants brought from Ceylon to the Netherlands in 1786, and afterwards taken from thence to Paris.
Hence it appears vey clear that Cuvier described his Elephas indicus from specimens of two different species, one of which agrees with the Elephant of Bengal, whilst the others have all the characters of the Elephant of Sumatra. Since, therefore, both the latter skeletons attributed by Cuvier to Ceylon, presented the characters of the Elephant of Sumatra, it appeared to me to be probable that the Ceylonese Elephant belonged to the Sumatran species, and not to that of Bengal—the so-called Elephas indicus. This conjecture has been now wholly unexpectedly confirmed through a fortunate conjunction of circumstances, in a manner which leaves no further doubt on the subject. The celebrated traveller Diard, advanced in years, but still endued with that untiring zeal and youthful activity by which science and our National Museum have profited so largely, during his long service under the government of the Netherlands, passed three months in Ceylon, in 1888, on a journey undertaken with the object of investigating the system of cultivation, and employed his leisure time in collecting the animals of the island. During some Elephant-shooting expeditions, he obtained a male and female Elephant from seven to eight feet high, and besides these two young specimens, which he placed entire in casks filled with arrack. The ​ship in which most of H. Diard's specimens were sent to Europe, received so much damage at sea near the Mauritius, that the goods were mostly trans-shipped, and sent in another vessel to Europe. It thus happened that she did not arrive in the Netherlands until two years after she had quitted Ceylon, and then with the news that the cask containing one of the young Elephants had been obliged to be thrown overboard, having become decomposed. A better fate awaited the second cask, containing the other young individual, which had been destined for Professor Owen of London; and this and the skin and skeleton of the old male Elephant, as also the skull of the old female reached us well preserved. These are now in the National Museum at Leyden, and, as an accurate investigation has convinced me, differ in no respect from our examples of the Sumatran Elephant, thus belonging to this species, and differing in the following particulars from Elephas indicus.
The Elephant of Sumatra and Ceylon, (Elephas sumatranus) has small ears like E. indicus, and approaches this species also in the form of its skull, and the number of the caudal vertebræ; but the laminæ of its teeth are wider, and in the number of its dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs it differs from both the other known species. As far as we know, there are seven cervical, three lumbar and four sacral vertebræ in all the species of Elephas alike. H. sumatranus and E. indicus agree in the number of caudal vertebræ, which is usually thirty-three, but in very young examples sometimes only thirty. In E. africanus, on the other hand, the tail never contains more than twenty-six vertebræ. Finally, the numbers of dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs are different m each of the three living species of Elephant, being in E. africanus twenty-one, in E. sumatranus twenty, and in E. indicus nineteen.
It is also remarkable, that the number of true ribs is alike in all the species, that is, only five; whilst in the three species, as above given, the corresponding numbers of false ribs are fifteen, fourteen and thirteen. Hence it follows that the augmentation of these parts in the different species, takes place in the direction of the hindermost dorsal vertebra and pair of ribs.
The laminæ of the teeth afford another distinction, which, however, is less apparent to the eye than that taken from the number of the vertebræ. These laminæ, or bands, in E. sumatranus are wider (or if one may so say, broader in the direction of the long axis of the teeth) than in E. indicus. In making this comparison one must remark that the distinction is less evident in younger individuals, and that there are met with in all species of Elephants, within certain definite limits, remarkable individual differences in respect of the width of these laminæ.
​In their external form also the two Asiatic Elephants appear to present some differences. Heer Westerman, Director of the Gardens of the Zoological Society of Amsterdam, which has for several years possessed two female elephants of middling age, one from Calcutta and the other from Sumatra, informs me, on this subject, that the Sumatran example is more slender and more finely built than the Bengalese, that it has a longer and thinner snout, and that the rump at me end is more broadened and covered with longer and stronger hairs, in which respect it reminds one rather of the African than the Indian Elephant, and lastly that the Sumatran animal is more remarkable for its intellectual development than the Indian.
The last mentioned observation agrees in a remarkable way with what Heer Diard has lately written concerning the Elephant of Ceylon. He says, on this matter, "l'Elephant de Ceylon se distingue de celui des Indes par une aptitude d'intelligence instinctive, celle de facile éducabilité: aussi ces elephans de Ceylon, de tout temps recherchés par les Princes de l'Inde se trouvent l'être encore aujourdhui plus qu' aucun autre par les Anglais pour les differens services auxquels on les employe. J'ai eu l'occasion d'observer plusieurs grandes troupes de ces animaux et une particulièrement, qui avait fini par se laisser prendre dans une grande enceinte établie par les ordres du Gouvernement, qui à cette époque où la guerre de l'Inde etait encore loin d'etre terminée faisait tout ce qu'il est possible pour recruter un certain nombre de ces animaux afin de les diriger vers le Bengale."
When we collect what is known respecting the distribution of both species of Asiatic Elephants, it seems that this animal is met with eastward of the Indus throughout the whole of Hindostan, Bengal, and the wide districts of Further India to Siam and Cochin- China, and also on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra; that one of the species, E. sumatranus, has only yet been met with on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra, whilst the so-called Indian Elephant has been brought to Europe exclusively from Continental India.
So far as I can discover, the greater number of Elephants brought to Europe from Continental India, have been obtained from Bengal. It remains therefore a question, whether all the Elephants of Continental India belong really to one species, or whether, in these widely extended regions, there may not be different species of Elephants, and the Elephant of Trans-gangetic India may not perhaps belong to E. sumatranus, A similar question may be asked with respect to the Elephant of Southern India, compared with the E. sumatranus of Ceylon, since these districts approach one another very nearly. We have, it is true, no more reasons for answer​ing these questions in the affirmative than the negative, but they must be determined by ascertaining the facts, in order to know the exact boundaries of the range of E. indicus.
If, as we have reason to believe is the case, the Elephant of Southern India agrees with that of Bengal, then the phenomenon that the Ceylonese animal belongs to another species, and that species the Sumatran, is certainly very remarkable. The Fauna of Ceylon shows, it is true, in some respects, differences from that of Southern India; one of the most noticeable of which is, that not one of the Monkeys living upon this island is identical with those of India. Nevertheless the Fauna of Ceylon agrees much better with that of India than with that of Sumatra, where not only entirely different species, but even other forms of Monkeys occur (e.g. the Orangoutang, several Gibbons, amongst which is the abnormal Hylobates syndactylus, the Galeopithecus, &c.) and which island besides produces, to mention some of the larger species, a Rhinoceros, the Indian Tapir, a very different species of Bos and of Moschus, an Antelope, the Argus, Polyplectron, several very peculiar species of Hornbill, (e.g. Buceros bicornis, and B. galeatus), and many other species and genera, which are not met with in Ceylon. It would be, however, anticipating the progress of science, when, as now, so small a quantity of incomplete materials are before us, to make comparisons between the Faunas of these countries, and it would be still more precipitate to attempt to draw general conclusions therefrom.
If we take into consideration at once the size of the laminæ of ​the teeth, in the different species of Elephant, and the numbers of the ribs and dorsal vertebræ, we obtain the remarkable result that, as the latter numbers decrease, the laminæ become narrower. In E. africanus these laminæ are widest, and here we also find the greatest number of dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs: E. sumatranus, in which the laminæ are narrower, has twenty dorsal vertebræ and pairs of ribs: E. indicus, in which they are still narrower, only nineteen. In the Mammoth, (E. primigenius) where they are narrowest of all, the number of dorsal vertebræ and ribs, appears to be only eighteen.
As the conclusion of this short notice, we may remark that Cuvier, by neglecting to compare together specimens of the different species of Elephants, and to attend to the numbers of their dorsal vertebræ and ribs, deprived himself of the discovery of the third living species of Elephant, and thereby missed a principal argument for his assertion, that E. primigenius belonged to a different species from those now in existence. Had he not lost this piece of evidence he would have obtained an overbearing argument in the last-named question, and Naturalists would have become acquainted with the existence of a third species of Elephant, half a century sooner.
* ↑ See Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Academie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Natuurkunde, 1861, p. 101.
* ↑ See his "Coup d'œil sur les possesions Nederlandaises dans les Indes Orientales." Vol. II. p. 91.
* ↑ See Proc. Zool. Soc. 1849, p. 144.
* ↑ Coup d'œil, II. p. 91.
* ↑ It is very curious that Cuvier seems to have quite overlooked the differences in the number of dorsal vertebræ and ribs, not only in both the Asiatic but also in the African Elephant, for otherwise he could hardly have avoided alluding to them. The chapter of his Ossemeus fossiles (I. p. 12), in which he speaks of the skeleton of the Elephant, has the heading "Description generale de l'osteologie de l'Elephant, principalement d'apres l'Elephant des Indes," and it seems from the particulars here mentioned, that his principal object was the comparison of the skulls of the African and Indian Elephants; on the other hand that he confined himself to the consideration of the skeleton of Elephas sumatranus of Ceylon, while his figure of the skeleton represents that of the Bengalese Elephant. Again, (p. 241) he says, l'Elephant (thus speaking generally), a une vertèbre dorsale et une pairs des côtesa plus, i.e. than the Mastadon, which, according to him, has only nineteen.
* ↑ In the Paris Museum at the present moment, as I learn by a friendly communication of Dr. Pucheran, there are, besides the skeletons of the two Ceylonese Elephants, brought from Holland to Paris in 1795, and examined by Cuvier, a third sent by Duvancel from Bengal M. Pacheran confirms the fact, that both the Ceylonese elephant-skeletons hare twenty dorsal vertebræ and twenty pairs of ribs. He finds, however, the same number in the skeleton from Bengal. from this one might be led to suppose, that the Ceylonese Elephant is also found in Bengal. But I think it would be rash to consider this fact established by a single observation, as an the skeletons of Bengalese Elephants which I hare examined have had, without exception, only nineteen dorsal vertebræ and nineteen ribs. It is more likely that Duvaucel's skeleton was taken from a Ceylonese Elephant; examples of this sort being, as we shall afterwards show on the authority of Heer Diard, often brought living to Bengal.
* ↑ The differences which we pointed oat as existing between the skulls of the two sorts of Asiatic Elephants, in Temminck's Coup d'œil, (II. p. 9, note), seem, now that we have examined a greater number of examples, not to be constant.
* ↑ The whole area of the distribution of the Asiatic Elephants is, on the globe, embraced in a district of the form of an elongated quadrangle of 40 degrees in length and 25 in breadth, of which about half is taken up by sea. It lies between 65° and 105° E. L. and from N. to S. extends from about 35° and 25° N. to 5° S.
* ↑ The works of Naturalists and travellers throw no light upon this subject. Corse (PhiL Trans. 1799, p. 245) it is true, tells us that the Bengalese distinguish three races of Elephants—Mooknah, Dauntelah and Komarea; but the distinctions which he gives of these races, seem to refer exclusively to the lesser or greater size and the form of the tusks. But we know how much the tusks of this animal vary according to the sex and the individual, and that these teeth sometimes, even in old females, acquire a considerable size.
* ↑ I think the attention of Naturalists ought to be turned also to the Elephants of the different parts of Africa. We meet, among the skulls from this Continent, with some which, as regards the extraordinary shortness of the tusk-jaw-bones, are proportionately shorter and much broader than is generally the case. Such a skull is figured by Cuvier, (Oss. Foss. I. pl. 4, fig. 2), whereas on the same plate, (fig. 10) the usual form of the skull of the African Elephant is represented. That this difference is not sexual I have repeatedly observed: one might therefore sup- pose that the individual, the skull of which has such a remarkably contracted form, belongs to another variety or species. All the South African Elephants, that I have seen, belong to the ordinary form. I do not know the locality of the short skull. It would be very desirable to compare the Elephants from different parts of Africa, in order to know with certainty whether they are all identical, or show local differ- ences. The latter is not impossible, since most animals from the two chief divisions of Africa differ specifically from one another, or at least show differences in size, &c, as, for example, is the case with the Ostrich of Algeria and that of South Africa. In every case it is remarkable, that the area of Asia tenanted by the Elephant is ten times smaller than Africa, and that this area embraces two species, whilst the African Elephant is spread over the whole Continent—that is, over an area ten times as great as that of the two Asiatic species together.
* ↑ That the Mastodons form, not a diverging, but a parallel series with the Elephants, seems evident from the wholly different form of their tusks, also from the fact that the Mastodon giganteus has only twenty dorsal vertebræ and an equal number of ribs—that is less than E. africanus—whilst the knobs of the teeth are far larger than those of the last-named animal.