which he afterwards published,[1] 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.[2]
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
- ↑ 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.
