The great teeth of such quadrupeds as the Hippopotamus require
proportioned jaws, and, consequently, the bones of the head are of great
strength and weight. Thence arises a necessity for the head being
supported by a particular ligamentous apparatus, which in the bull is
vulgarly called the _paxwax_ (the ligamentum muchæ). This ligament
extends from the prominent spines of the vertebrae betwixt the
shoulders, to the occiput or back of the head, so as to suspend the
head, and of course without muscular exertion or waste of vital energy.
This ligament, however, differs from the common ligaments which knit the
bones together, in being elastic; without which property it would check
the motions of the head. On this subject of the wonderful provisions
evinced in the bones of the head and neck of the larger animals, we were
much interested in what was lately delivered by Sir C. Bell, the
anatomical Professor in the Royal College of Surgeons. On exhibiting the
skull of the elephant, and leading his audience to remark the weight of
the grinding teeth, the length of the tusks, and the size and strength
of the jaws, he observed it was impossible that such an enormous engine
of mastication could be suspended at the end of a long neck. Jockies, he
said, attended very particularly to a light head and a short neck in a
horse; a heavy head and a long neck brought too great a weight to bear
upon the fore-feet. If such slight differences in the shape were
observed to produce defects in the horse, the consequent imperfection
would be incalculably greater in the elephant. But in this animal,
nature, instead of projecting the head on such a neck as would enable
the mouth to reach the ground, diminishes the depth of the vertebrae of
the neck in a very remarkable manner, so as in fact to fix the head to
the body without the intervention of a neck. But how was the animal to
feed? since the want of a neck and the projection of the tusks made
grazing in the usual way impossible. This implied the necessity of a
trunk, which is equivalent to a hand, and enables the animal to feed
itself without projecting the head to the ground. By these and similar
illustrations, the Professor proved design in the structure of the
skeleton; and contrasted the heads of the horse, the elephant, and the
giraffe.
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