3-017-083 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The newly-imported African elephant at the Gardens of the Zoological Society, Regent's Park, [London], 1865. '...no example of the African species has been previously exhibited...[here], nor, we believe, has such an animal ever been previously brought to England alive. As, however, the African elephant is very distinct in its outer form as well as in its internal structure from the Indian species, the council of the society have long been desirous of bringing the two elephants together side by side in the gardens...it is only within the last few weeks that the...society succeeded in obtaining an African elephant from the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in exchange for an Indian rhinoceros. The animal thus acquired is a young male, supposed to be five or six years old. He is nearly the same size as the smaller of the two Indian elephants now in the society's collection. When the two are placed together, as is the case every day, for some hours, the differences between them are very striking. The most obvious peculiarity of the African species consists in the enormous ears, which cover the whole side of the head. The general outline of the two species is likewise very different, as is also the form of the trunk and the shape of the forehead'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.