NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 58·72.
[191] Gentleman’s Magazine
May 31.
Death of an Elephant.
With the destruction of the elephant belonging to Mr. Cross, at Exeter Change, [described] in the present volume, may be paralleled the destruction of another on this day in the year 1820. The particulars are related in the “London Magazine” of April 1, 1826; they seem to have been translated from a “Notice sur l’Elephant mort a Geneve le 31 Mai dernier,” in the “Almanach Historique, nommé Messager Boiteux pour l’An de grace, 1821,” which has been sent to the editor of the Every-Day Book for the purpose of enabling him to lay the annexed [engraving] before the readers of London, from a print in that “Almanac,” which is printed in quarto “á Vevey, chez Freres Lœrtscher.”
In May, 1820, for about a fortnight a fine Bengal elephant (Elephas Indicus, Cuvier—Elephas Maximus, Linn.) had been exhibited at Geneva. The elephants of this species are taller than those of Africa. They have an elevated cranium, which has two protuberances on its summit; the frontal bone is rather concave, and the head proportionably longer; their tusks are smaller than those of the African elephant. The animal in question had but one; he had lost the other by some accident. He was nine feet high, and of a dark-brown colour, he was ten years old, and had been bought in London six years before. Mademoiselle Garnier, (the niece of his proprietor,) to whom he was much attached, always travelled with him. She was the proprietor of an elephant which had broken loose at Venice a few years previously, and was killed by a cannon-shot, after it had committed considerable ravages in that city.