The Green Forest tribune., 1910-07-22

growth of coarse hair all over the
 body. This is the mammoth, the re-
 mains of which are found in every
 river valley in England, France and
 Germany, and of which whole carcases are frequently discovered in northern
 Siberia, preserved from decay in the
 frozen river graVels and silt. The
 ancient caYemen of France used the
 fresh tusks of the mammoth killed on
 the spot for their carving sand en- cravings, and from their time to this
 day ivory of the mammoth has been
 and remains in constant use. It is es-
 timated that during the last two cen
 turies at least hundred pairs of
 mammoths' tusks have been each year
 exported from the frozen lands of Si-
 berta. In early medieval times the
 trade existed, and some ivory carvings
 and drinking horns of that age appear
 to be fashioned from this more an-
 eient ivory. Already, then, within the
 human period we find elephants close
 iy similar to those of our own time,
 far more numerous and widely dis
 tributed than in our own day, and
 happily established all over the tenn
 perate regions of the earth-eVeu in
 our Thames valley and in the forests
 where London now spreads it's smoky patchwork. When we go further back
 in time-as the digging and surveying
 of modern man enable US to do-we
 find other elephants of many different
 species, some differing greatly from
 the three species I have mentioned
 and leading us back by gradual steps
 to a comparatively small animal, about
 the size of 3. donkey, without the won derful tusk or the immense tusks of
 the later elephants By the discovery
 and study of these earlier forms We
 have within the last ten years arrived
 at a knowledge of the steps by which the elephant acquired in the course i of long ages (millions of years) his 'proboscis" Gas the Greeks first called it), and I will later sketch that his tory.
 But now let us first of all note some | of the peculiarities of living elephants and the points by which the two kinds differ from another, The most striking
 fact about the elephant is it's enormous size, it is only exceeded among living animals by whales; it is far larger than the biggest bull, or rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. A fair-sized Indian elephant weighs two or three tons 1 (Jumbo weighed five), and requires as | food 60 pounds of oats, 1 F truss of hay, 1 F truss corn day costing to- gether about five ShiuingS. whereas a l large cart horse weighs 15 hundred weight and requires weekly three i trusses of hay and so pounds of oats, costing together 12 shillings, or about l Is Sled a day It is this which has | proved fatal to the elephant since man took charge of the world The | elephant requires so much food and takes so many years in growing up | (20 or more before he is old enough to i be put to work) that it is only in countries where there is a superabun- | dance of forest in which he can be al- 1 lowed to grow to maturity at his own | charges (so to speak) that it is
 worth while to attempt to domesticate
 and make use of him. For most pur- 1 poses three horses are more handy"
 than one elephant The elephant is caught when he is already grown up, and then trained. It is as matter of economy that he is not bred in con i finement, and not because there is any insuperable difficulty in the matter, Occasionally elephants have bred iD
 menageries.