A TIGER’S ATTACK.
By permission Illustrated London News. Frontispiece.
MARVELS OF ANIMAL LIFE SERIES.
THE IVORY KING
A Popular History of
THE ELEPHANT AND ITS ALLIES
BY
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER
FELLOW OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ETC.; AUTHOR OF “ELEMENTS
OF ZOOLOGY,” “MARVELS OF ANIMAL LIFE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1902
Copyright, 1886, 1888, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
Press of Berwick & Smith,
Boston, U.S.A.
TO
MY MOTHER
This Volume
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
The elephant is the true king of beasts, the largest and mostpowerful of existing land animals, and to young and old anever ceasing source of wonder and interest. In former geologicalages, it roamed the continental areas of every zone; was found innearly every section of North America, from the shores of theArctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and from New England toCalifornia. Where the hum of great cities is now heard, in bygonedays the trumpeting of the mastodon and elephant, andthe cries of other strange animals, broke the stillness of thevast primeval forest. But they have all passed away, theirextirpation undoubtedly hastened by the early man, the aboriginalhunter; and the mighty race of elephants, which nowremains so isolated, is to-day represented by only two species,the African and the Asiatic, forms which are also doomed.
To produce the eight hundred tons of ivory used annually,nearly seventy-five thousand elephants are destroyed; and it doesnot require the gift of prophecy to foresee their extinction in thenear future. The Asiatic elephant is said to be holding its own;but the rapid advance of the British in the East, the introductionof railroads and improvements which mark the progress of civilizationin India, where heretofore the elephant has been employed,cannot fail to have a fatal effect, and their extermination is only[viii]a matter of time. Knowing these facts, and the close relationshipwhich the elephant has ever held in the advancement of mankindin the East, it stands a picture of absorbing interest, thelast of a powerful race, worthy of earnest efforts for its preservation.The question of its extinction rests with the risinggeneration. In America and England the ornithologists have