Elephant tusk

“ The large proportion of very small tusks which are now brought to market annually is a sure indication of the increasing number of elephants that die young. To show to what size these tusks might attain, the American consul states that there was in a Sheffield showroom an African elephant’s tusk nine feet long, twenty-one inches in girth, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. The value of the tusk was one hundred and thirty pounds, and it is said that an animal large enough and strong enough to carry such a pair would attract far more attention than Jumbo did. ”

“ It is seldom that a pair of tusks are alike. As a man uses the right hand in preference to the left, so the elephant works with a particular tusk, which is termed by the traders "el Hadam" (the servant) ; this is naturally, more worn than the other, and is usually about ten pounds lighter: frequently it is broken, as the elephant uses it as a lever to uproot trees and to tear up the roots of various bushes upon which he feeds.
The African elephant is not only entirely different from the Indian species in his habits, but he also differs in form. ”

“ It is the opinion of many, that these tusks might have been reversed in the living animal, with their points downwards; but as we know not the kind of enemy it had to fear, we judged only by analogy in giving them the direction of the elephant, especially as we know of no other carnivorous animal with only eight grinders and two tusks: Neither the tusk itself, nor the cavities for the reception of them, could assist in the determination, as they were both very straight, and would equally answer one way as the other.
There is one bone less in the neck of this animal than in the elephant ”

“ Of the largest pair in the possession of the British Museum, which belonged to an elephant killed in 1866 by Colonel G.M. Payne in Madras, one tusk measures 6 ft. 8 in. in length, and weighs 773⁄4 ℔, the other being somewhat smaller. It should be added that some of these large tusks came from Ceylon; such tuskers being believed to be descended from mainland animals imported into the island. “White” elephants are partial or complete albinos, and are far from uncommon in Burma and Siam. Young Indian elephants are hairy, thus showing affinity with the mammoth. ”

“ An elephant has tusks and a trunk. This little Moeritherium hasn’t either, so far as I can make out.”
“That’s because the animal is so far back in the line of development,” the scientist reminded him. “He isn’t in a direct line, but more like a [Pg 209] first cousin of what the ancestral elephant must have been, although we haven’t found any specimens of him yet. As for the trunk—well, it’s true there isn’t any sign of that, the eyes are too far forward. But the tusk question is interesting. Do you know, Perry, which are the teeth that the elephant has developed into tusks?” ”

“ On the morning on which this Prince killed the tusk elephant, men came in order to build [the damaged houses in] the city. When they looked about that day, they said that the tusk elephant is still staying there, sleeping; and the men having become afraid, ran away.
After that, a man came, and having slowly come near the tusk elephant, when he was looking at it perceived that was dead. Thereupon the man having come near, when he looked [saw that] some one had stabbed the tusk elephant. ”

“ Livingstone saw an elephant with three tusks, the third one growing out between the other two. The tusks frequently grow straight; some twist in a spiral, others form a complete circle; and many elephants have only one from birth,—like the fictitious unicorn. These animals are called Gunésh by the natives. The name is that of the Hindoo god of wisdom; and, if the single tusk of the Gunésh is the right one, the animal is reverenced. Some dimensions of tusks will be given in the chapter on Ivory. Perhaps the largest was one sold in Amsterdam some years ago. ”

“ The African elephant is of larger size as a rule, with enormously developed ears, which quite overlap his withers. The forehead recedes, and the trunk is more coarsely ringed; the tusks are larger, some almost reaching the size of those mentioned above in the fossil head at the museum. An old friend of mine, well known to all the civilised—and a great portion of the uncivilised—world, Sir Samuel Baker, had, and may still have, in his possession a tusk measuring ten feet nine inches. ”

“ This great Elephant in most respects more nearly approached the existing Indian Elephant. The teeth have quite as numerous plates. The tusks were enormous, reaching a maximum length of 15 feet; they were much curved upwards as well as outwards. A large tusk weighs as much as 250 lbs. The Mammoth was of exceedingly wide range. Not only was it found in various parts of Europe, but it was especially abundant in Siberia, as is exemplified by the fact that for the last two hundred years as many or more than 100 pairs of tusks annually have been sold from that region. ”

“ Very large and bulky elephants appear to carry small tusks. Why they appear small is this: A tusk reaches a great length and a great lip diameter in a comparatively small number of years, but is very hollow and weighs light. ”

“ Although tusks and horns appear in all cases to have been primarily developed as sexual weapons, they often serve for other purposes. The elephant uses his tusks 249in attacking the tiger; according to Bruce, he scores the trunks of trees until they can be easily thrown down, and he likewise thus extracts the farinaceous cores of palms; in Africa he often uses one tusk, this being always the same, to probe the ground and thus to ascertain whether it will bear his weight. ”

“ The African differs from the Asiatic in the formation of ivory, the tusks of the former being both thicker and heavier; the females also possess tusks, whereas those of the Asiatic variety have merely embryo tusks, which do not project more than two or three inches beyond the lips. I had a tusk of an African elephant that weighed 149 lbs. I have seen in Khartoum a pair that weighed 300 lbs., and I saw a single tusk of 172 lbs. ”

“ What are thirty or forty or fifty years, in comparison with the endless ages that have gone to the evolution of these wonderful animals? It is remarkable, too, that in spite of all the hundreds of African elephants which are being killed, not a single museum in the whole world possesses one of the gigantic male elephants which were once so numerous, but which are now so rarely to be met with. Accompanying this chapter is a photograph of the heaviest elephant-tusks which have ever reached the coast from the interior. ”

“ Should there be two pieces too few to complete the last square, thus □ ̅ ̅, then it is thought to be superlatively good, as representing the rare phenomenon of an elephant with only one tusk. Should there however be one too few, thus □ ̅ ̅, then it is called an elephant with two tusks, and the weapon is considered moderately good at best. ”

“ The substance of ivory is so elastic and flexible that excellent riding-whips have been cut longitudinally from whole tusks. The size to which tusks grow and are brought to market depends on race rather than on size of elephants. The latter run largest in equatorial Africa. Asiatic bull elephant tusks seldom exceed 50 ℔ in weight, though lengths of 9 ft. ”

“ Then the man [in order] to say, “They will be this much [across] ,” released the hand which remained holding the tail of the tusk elephant. So the man fell to the ground, and all the other men fell to the ground.
Only the tusk elephant went to the Divine World.
Cultivating Caste, North-western Province.
[Contents]
In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 234, Mr. C. J. R. Le Mesurier mentioned the man who tied up the rice mortars in the belief that the elephants’ foot-prints in a rice field were caused by them. ”

“ The Tusk Elephant of the Divine World (Variant) .
In a certain country a man having worked a rice field, after the paddy became big a tusk elephant comes from the Divine World and eats the paddy.
The man having gone, when he looked (balāpuwama) there are no gaps [in the fence] for any animal whatever to come; there are footprints. The man thought, “It is the rice mortars of the men of our village that have eaten this ”

“ Then the man said, “As soon as the tusk elephant has got in front3 I will hang at the elephant’s tail. One of you also take hold at my waist,4 let still [another] man take hold at the man’s waist, and thus in that manner all come.”
After that, the men having said “Hā,” in that very way the tusk elephant got in front. The man having hung from the tusk elephant’s tail, when they were going away, the other men holding the waists, there was a coconut tree in the path. ”

“ Though its home is in Asia and Africa, it has often been brought to America and shown in menageries and other places. It is a great, clumsy-looking brute, with a long, flexible trunk, ivory tusks, great flapping ears, stout legs and broad hoofs. [118] The tusks, you know, are great overgrown teeth made of hard ivory.
It does not look like an animal that could think, but few of the animals below man have done so many wise and smart things. Only the dog and the monkey are its equals. I shall speak of its thinking powers further on, but here I wish to deal with the elephant as a worker for man. ”

“ To make a spoor twenty-four inches long, requires the animal to be a very large one; and to be very large, he should be a bull, and an old one too.
Well, the older and larger the better, provided his tusks have not been broken by some accident. When that happens they are never recovered again. The elephant does cast his tusks, but only in the juvenile state, when they are not bigger than lobster's claws; and the pair that succeeds these is permanent, and has to last him for life—perhaps for centuries—for no one can tell how long the mighty elephant roams over this sublunary planet. ”

“ These tusks protect the trunk, which curls up between them when the animal traverses woods in which there are many thorns, prickles and thick underbrush. The Elephant also uses them for putting aside and holding down branches, when, with its trunk it plucks off the tops of leafy boughs. The ivory obtained from the tusks of the Elephant is remarkable for the fineness of its grain, whiteness, hardness, and the beautiful polish that can be given to it. ”

“ This is erroneous: after losing the first pair, or, as they are called, the “milk tusks,” which drop in consequence of the absorption of their roots, when the animal is extremely young, the second pair acquire their full size, and become the “permanent tusks,” which are never shed.
15 I have no means of ascertaining the dimensions of the largest tusks supposed to have been obtained in continental India. Of those that I have myself seen the greatest was taken from an elephant killed by Sir Victor Brooke Bart. ”

“ In India and Malacca, the males alone are provided with well-developed tusks. The elephant of Ceylon," adds Mr. Darwin, "is considered by most naturalists as a distinct race; there, 'not one in a hundred is found with tusks, the few that possess them being exclusively males.' The African elephant is undoubtedly distinct, and the female has large, well-developed tusks, though not so large as those of the male." The molars, or grinding-teeth, exhibit an equally curious structure. In the life-time of an elephant twenty-four molar teeth are developed in all, six on each side of each jaw. ”

“ They bring forth only one young, which has teeth at its birth, and is then bigger than a wild boar; his tusks are not visible, but they appear soon after, and when six months old they are some inches long. At that age the elephant is bigger than the ox, and the tusks continue to increase till he is much advanced in years, provided the animal is in health, and at liberty, for it is scarcely to be imagined how much slavery and unnatural food change his natural habit and constitution. ”

“ The tusks, which are often lacking in Asiatic Elephants, especially in the females, are the incisors of the upper jaw, grown straight out, and serve primarily as weapons, although in domesticated animals they are used to dig and lift and to carry heavy burdens. Besides these teeth the Elephant has four large molars, two in each jaw, and he is able to chew from four to eight hundred pounds of green fodder a day with them. ”

“ The female elephant uses her tusks to scrape the barks from trees; but the large tusks of the males are designed as a defence,—the elephant with the finest tusks ruling the herd,—and terrific wounds are made by them. The elephant Conqueror, in this country, was killed by being gored in this way; and in India, when it is necessary at the government corral to subdue a mad elephant, a reliable tusker is provided with steel tusks, or glavies, which fit over the stumps of the others, and with these they do terrible work. ”

“ When the tusks get broken—a not uncommon thing—he must remain toothless or “tuskless” for the rest of his life. Although the elephant may consider the loss of his huge tusks a great calamity, were he only a little wiser, he would break them off against the first tree. It would, in all probability, be the means of prolonging his life; for the hunter would not then consider him worth the ammunition it usually takes to kill him.
After a short consultation among the hunters, Swartboy started off upon the spoor, followed by Von Bloom and Hendrik. ”

“ Moreover, he has to defend himself against the rhinoceros, which is a formidable antagonist, and often victorious. He requires tusks also for his food in this country, for the elephant digs up the mimosa here with his tusks, that he may feed upon the succulent roots of the tree. Indeed, an elephant in Africa without his tusks could not well exist. ”