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Show •J MR. SCLATER ON THE TUSKS OF ELEPHAS INDICUS. 115 February 21, 1871. Osbert Salvin, Esq., F.Z.S., in the Chair. The Secretary announced the birth of a Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) in the Society's Gardens, which had taken place that day about 4.30 P.M. The Hippopotamus had previously bred in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of Amsterdam and in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, but not in this country. Further particulars of this interesting occurrence were promised to be given from Mr. Bartlett's notes at the next meeting of the Society. The Secretary exhibited on the part of Mr. Edwin Ward, F.Z.S., a collection of heads of mammals made in Ladakh by Mr. George Landseer. Mr. Sclater exhibited a pair of tusks of a female Indian Elephant (Elephas indicus), which presented the appearance of having been corroded or eaten away in the basal portion, immediately adjacent to where they entered the gums. Just below this, on the outer side of each tusk, was deposited a mass of egg-like bodies arranged in regular series, apparently of some dipterous insect, and somewhat resembling those of the common Blowfly (Musca vomitoria). These tusks had been submitted to Mr. Bartlett for examination, by Mr. G. S. Roden, of the 1st Royals, lately stationed in India, who had communicated to Mr. Sclater the following note on the subject:- "The tusks which I left with Mr. Bartlett belonged to a female elephant, which I shot last June at a place called « Muddry,' at the foot of the Manantowady Mountains in Malabar. " Directly after shooting her I lifted up her lips to see the size of the tusks, and then noticed the deposit of eggs on them. I had them carefully cut out. On cleaning the tusks afterwards I noticed that they had been eaten away at the ends, and also near where the white eggs were. There were no maggots in the grooves at the end of the tusks ; they were merely filled up with some dark dry clay, just the same as what you see the eggs now surrounded by. The tusks have been slightly polished over ; but I took great care that the eggs should not be touched." Mr. Sclater remarked that a previous notice of the same phenomenon had appeared in a letter addressed to the * Field' newspaper on the 12th March last, signed by a well-known Indian sportsman, under the pseudonym of " Smoothbore " *. Mr. Sclater added that he had been informed by Prof. Flower * " Has any zoologist or microscopist ever noticed how the tusks of female elephants are attacked and eaten away by some parasite ? and is it not most singular that this has never been observed in the tusks of the male?"-Field, March 12, 1870. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1871, No. X. |