. . the more folds thereare in the skin and the more crimping in the wool, thefiner will be the fiber, or staple. The wool should be atleast one-fifth of the total live weight of the sheep; thosesheep weighing about one hundred pounds should yield afleece of about twenty pounds. The mutton type is heavyand square built, the neck rather short and level with thebody, the legs slender and clean from the body down. H. B. Shinn. THE ELEPHANT The Elephant originated in Africa, many ages ago, butbeing a great traveler, wandered throughout t
. . the more folds thereare in the skin and the more crimping in the wool, thefiner will be the fiber, or staple. The wool should be atleast one-fifth of the total live weight of the sheep; thosesheep weighing about one hundred pounds should yield afleece of about twenty pounds. The mutton type is heavyand square built, the neck rather short and level with thebody, the legs slender and clean from the body down. H. B. Shinn. THE ELEPHANT The Elephant originated in Africa, many ages ago, butbeing a great traveler, wandered throughout the world,passing from continent to continent across bridges which,in many cases, have since disappeared. The primitive formshave been found almost everywhere, two of the best knownbeing the hairy mammoth and the mastodon. Inhabitingthe tropics as it does, the typical covering of hair hasbecome reduced to the smallest possible fraction and existsmerely in the form of a few scattered bristles. To preventthe evaporation of moisture from the surface, the skin has. A NOTED HOOFED GROUP 107 become leathery and tough, and because of this, the animalis called a pachyderm. Apparently, in its efforts to holdits own in nature, it found its size and strength very impor-tant factors; hence it became one of Natures giants, aver-aging a total length over all of twenty-one feet, a height ofnine feet, and sometimes a weight of eight thousand large an animal could not sustain a heavy head at theend of a long neck, hence the neck remains short. Theproblem of securing food was solved by the elongation of theupper lip to form the trunk, or proboscis. Such an animalwould only find sufficient food in a locality where the sun-light, reaching the ground, would stimulate a luxuriantgrowth of herbage. Thus the elephant is at home in acountry quite open and well watered, not a desert, not amountain top, not a region of long winters. Though notone of Natures works of art, the elephant is one of h
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