At the present day there are two species only of elephant existing on the earth's surface. These are the Indian (Fig. 6) (called _Elephas indicus_, but sometimes called _Elephas maximus_ on account of the priority which belongs to that designation, although the Indian elephant is smaller than the other), and the African (Fig. 7) (called _Elephas Africanus_). In the wild state their area of occupation has become greatly diminished within historic times. The Indian elephant was hunted in Mesopotamia in the twelfth century B.C., and Egyptian drawings of the eighteenth dynasty show elephants of this species brought as tribute by Syrian vassals. To-day the Indian elephant is confined to certain forests of Hindoostan, Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. The African elephant extended 100 years ago all over South Africa, and in the days of the Carthaginians was found near the Mediterranean shore, whilst in prehistoric (late Pleistocene) times it existed in the south of Spain and in Sicily. Now it is confined to the more central and equatorial zone of Africa, and is yearly receding before the incursions and destructive attacks of civilised man. [Illustration: Fig. 7.--The African elephant (_Elephas Africanus_) with rider mounted on its back. The drawing is an enlarged representation of an ancient Carthaginian coin.] At no great distance of time before the historic period, earlier, indeed, than the times of the herdsmen who used polished stone implements and raised great stone circles, namely, in the late Pleistocene period, we find that there existed all over Europe and North Asia and the northern part of America another elephant very closely allied to the Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward curvature of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the body. This is "the mammoth," the remains of which are found in every river valley in England, France and Germany, and of which whole carcases are frequently discovered in Northern Siberia, preserved from decay in the frozen river gravels and "silt." The ancient cave-men of France used the fresh tusks of the mammoth killed on the spot for their carvings and engravings, and from their time to this the ivory of the mammoth has been, and remains, in constant use. It is estimated that during the last two centuries at least 100 pairs of mammoths' tusks have been each year exported from the frozen lands of Siberia. In early mediaeval times the trade existed, and some ivory carvings and drinking horns of that age appear to be fashioned from this more ancient ivory.