But the elephant is the greatest animal as to the development of this organ. Insect-eating animals have snouts of gristle, but the organ of prehension of the elephant is composed almost entirely of muscles of the most varied and curious structure. Cuvier counted twenty thousand muscles in an elephant's trunk, and then gave up his unfinished task.

This great mass of muscular endowment McCloskie says has improved his intelligence which is not so great as is popularly supposed. "Observation shows the elephant after all to be rather a stupid beast; it is the monkey, the fox, and the crow which are credited by the Hindoos with brute-cuteness, whilst the highest measure of rationality evinced by the elephant is when he plucks off the branch of a tree, using it as a whisk to drive off flies that torment him. It seems that he is very much afraid of flies, will take fright at a mouse, and is always timid and suspicious, none of these being traits of a large mind."

The nose has been connected always with the highest emotions of man. As cats are transported into the seventh heaven by the presence of their favorite weed and rats are similarly affected by rhodium, so man carries a perfume in his pocket-handkerchief for his own delectation or that of his friends, and in many instances weaves into his worship certain rites in which the burning of incense and the offering of a sweet savor has a prominent part. The Eskimo shows his appreciation of his organ of smell by putting it forward to touch that of his friend whom he meets on terms of special endearment.

Antony Van Corlear's large and rubicund nose is gravely recorded by Irving to have been the means of bringing a great boon to the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam because when he fell asleep in a boat one day, the effulgence of the sun at high meridian fell upon his shining feature, was reflected into the deep with such an undiminished power that the beam came into violent contact with a sturgeon, and, by causing the death of the fish at a time when the Dutch were willing to experiment a little in the matter of gustation, thus introduced the habit of eating this excellent fish to the founders of a great commonwealth.

That the near neighbors of the American Dutch also held the nose in high esteem is attested by the fact that when among the American English any of their divines in one of their interminable sermons came upon a series of unusually great thoughts and carried the congregation into the heights of sacred felicity they acknowledged the divinity of the occasion by "humming him through the nose." Much of their singing also was given an unction otherwise impossible to it by their peculiar nasal attitude while worshiping by use of the psalms.

While the nose is a most prominent feature of the countenance and the beauty of the face depends largely upon that member's appearance, there is no one who can say just what shape the nose should have to be most beautiful. Socrates proved his nose to be handsomer than that of Alcibiades because it was better adapted to use. As the nose is used for smelling and the eye for seeing, Socrates maintained that the handsome eyes and nose of the polished young Greek were less useful and less adapted to the purposes for which such organs exist, and therefore the bulging eyes and violently turned-up nose of the philosopher were held to be more beautiful than those of Alcibiades.

FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.WHITE IBIS.
3/10 Life-size.		COPYRIGHT 1899,
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.
CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO.,