It is needless to say that this was a gross exaggeration. Reference has been made, in a previous chapter, to the size of elephants; and it will be found that a twelve-foot animal is an extreme rarity. The skeleton that is preserved in the St. Petersburg museum, which is said to stand sixteen feet and a half high, is the tallest known, being a foot taller than the skeleton of the fossil elephant which was discovered at Jubbalpore. It is doubtful if the European mammoth or the American form, _Elephas Americanus_,—a tooth of which is shown in Plate I.,—attained this height. One of the largest elephant skeletons to be seen in this country belongs to the Chicago Medical College, and represents an elephant shot in a gorge of the Himalaya Mountains, about a thousand miles from Calcutta, in 1865. Its dimensions are as follows:— FT. IN. From top of shoulder to bottom of fore-foot 11 2 From top of head to root of tail 12 Length of trunk, from root to tip 7 Circumference of fore-arm 6 3 Circumference of fore-foot 3 3 The following are measurements of a large African male elephant, made by Thomas Baines, F.R.G.S., which show the average dimensions of an animal of the largest size:— FT. IN. Half the girth of the body 8 9 Half the girth behind the shoulder 7 9 Half the girth before the hind-leg 7 11 Length of tail, exclusive of hairy tuft 4 From insertion of tail to top of forehead 9 11 Top of forehead to insertion of trunk 3 Length of trunk 6 8 Total length of animal 20 10 From front of ear to back 3 9 From top to bottom of ear 5 3 Half breadth from eye to eye 1 9 Length of eye 3 From fore-foot to centre of spine 11 6 Actual height at shoulder 10 9 Height at middle of the back 12 Hind-foot to spine 9 3 Actual height 8 9 Projection of tusk beyond upper lip 2 Girth of tusk 1 Breadth of fore-foot 1 6 Length of fore-foot 1 9 Breadth of hind-foot 1 Length of hind-foot 2