Hermann Schlegel

“ 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, [8] whilst the so-called Indian Elephant has been brought to Europe exclusively from Continental India. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”