Note 14 — Chapter I · STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.

The old fallacy is still renewed that the elephant sheds his tusks. Ælian says he drops them once in ten years (lib. xiv. c. 5); and Pliny repeats the story, adding that, when dropped, the elephants hide them under ground (lib. viii.), whence Shaw says, in his Zoology, “they are frequently found in the woods,” and exported from Africa (vol. i. p. 213); and Sir W. Jardine in the Naturalist’s Library (vol. ix. p. 110), says, “the tusks are shed about the twelfth or thirteenth year.” 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.