[Illustration: 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. PREFACE. The elephant is the true king of beasts, the largest and most powerful of existing land animals, and to young and old a never ceasing source of wonder and interest. In former geological ages, it roamed the continental areas of every zone; was found in nearly every section of North America, from the shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and from New England to California. Where the hum of great cities is now heard, in bygone days the trumpeting of the mastodon and elephant, and the cries of other strange animals, broke the stillness of the vast primeval forest. But they have all passed away, their extirpation undoubtedly hastened by the early man, the aboriginal hunter; and the mighty race of elephants, which now remains so isolated, is to-day represented by only two species, the African and the Asiatic, forms which are also doomed.