Amongst other surmises more ingenious than sound, the general absence of tusks in the elephant of Ceylon has been associated with the profusion of rivers and streams in the island; whilst it has been thrown out as a possibility that in Africa, where water is comparatively scarce, the animal is equipped with these implements in order to assist it in digging wells in the sand and in raising the juicy roots of the mimosas and succulent plants for the sake of their moisture.  In support of this hypothesis, it has been observed, that whilst the tusks of the Ceylon species, which are never required for such uses, are slender, graceful and curved, seldom exceeding fifty or sixty pounds’ weight, those of the African elephant are straight and thick, weighing occasionally one hundred and fifty, and even three hundred pounds.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Notwithstanding the inferiority in weight of the Ceylon tusks, as compared with those of the elephant of India, it would, I think, be precipitate to draw the inference that the size of the former was uniformly and naturally less than that of the latter.  The truth, I believe to be, that if permitted to grow to maturity, the tusks of the one would, in all probability, equal those of the other; but, so eager is the search for ivory in Ceylon, that a tusker, when once observed in a herd, is followed up with such vigilant impatience, that he is almost invariably shot before attaining his full growth.  General DE LIMA, when returning from the governorship of the Portuguese settlements at Mozambique, told me, in 1848, that he had been requested to procure two tusks of the largest size, and straightest possible shape, which were to be formed into a cross to surmount the high altar of the cathedral at Goa:  he succeeded in his commission, and sent two, one of which was 180 pounds, and the other 170 pounds’ weight, with the slightest possible curve.  In a periodical, entitled The Friend, published in Ceylon, it is stated in the volume for 1837 that the officers belonging to the ships Quorrah and Alburhak, engaged in the Niger Expedition, were shown by a native king two tusks, each two feet and a half in circumference at the base, eight feet long, and weighing upwards of 200 pounds. (Vol. i. p. 225.) BRODERIP, in his Zoological Recreations, p. 255, says a tusk of 350 pounds’ weight was sold at Amsterdam, but he does not quote his authority.]

But it is manifestly inconsistent with the idea that tusks were given to the elephant to assist him in digging for his food, to find that the females are less bountifully supplied with them than the males, whilst the necessity for their use extends equally to both sexes.  The same argument serves to demonstrate the fallacy of the conjecture, that the tusks of the elephant were given to him as weapons of offence, for if such were the case the vast majority in Ceylon, males as well as females, would be left helpless in presence of an assailant.  But although in their conflicts with one another, those which are provided with tusks may occasionally push with them clumsily at their opponents; it is a misapprehension to imagine that tusks are designed specially to serve “in warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and the furious rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow which transfixes the assailant to the earth."[1]