Freiburger historische Bestände - digital

PREFACE.

IN the year 1896 the Zoological Gardens of Copenhagen received a young Indian Elephant lame in one
hind-leg, the femur having been dislocated during the capture of the animal. It lived nearly three
years in the gardens, but then the authorities of the institution decided, on account of the creature's
lameness, and its consequent distressing appearance, to have it killed, and to hand over the body to the
Zoological Laboratory of the R. Veterinary and Agricultural College, of which laboratory one of us is the
curator. The live animal was accordingly transported to the College, where, after an injection of morphia
it was chloroformed. In concordance with previous experiences of others the animal showed none of the
violent reactions to the chloroform so general in many animals before the narcosis. During the narcosis
the head and neck were separated from the body as near the thorax as possible, and immediately after
removal were injected with a four per cent solution of formaldehyde, through the carotids. It was then
placed in the usual freezing mixture (salt and ice) for forty eight hours; after which it was carried
into a saw-mill, and by means of a band-saw was divided sagitally into halves. The conservation, and
the freezing, proved excellent; and the section-plane had a rather good course. It may also be noted here,
that the animal, in all respects, —the luxation in the hip-joint excepted—, appeared to be quite healthy;
the material thus being in a first-rate condition. The head has since been preserved in formaldehyde1).

It is with an investigation of this head that the present work has started; of which herewith the First
Part is issued, which deals with the Proboscis and the Facial Muscles of the Elephant. The treatment of
these muscles has been decided upon from a desire to establish the homology of the muscles which take
part in the formation of the proboscis of the Elephant — what has been the departure of the whole
work. Rut with this object in view we were naturally induced to take up the study of the whole of the
facial muscles of the Elephant and this again of some necessity led us into a comparative stud}^ of the
facial muscles of the Mammals generally. The results of the last-named investigation we have laid down
in the first paragraph of the present work. It has in this place been our principal aim to establish the General
scheme of the facial muscles of the Mammals and to have a synopsis of the whole subject, as plain as
possible. To attain this end we have studied a number of forms of various groups of Mammals, the
majority of the »orders« having been investigated in one or — generally — more representatives2). Although
we are well aware, that very much work must be done before the matter is exhausted, we venture to
hope that the plain scheme, to which we have arrived through our rather extensive — but in the individual
object nevertheless quite intensive — studies, shall in the main prove to be settled. As to the origin of
the whole of the facial muscles and their derivation from what is found in the lower Vertebrates — a

x) Besides we have had at our disposal the trunk of another young Elephant, which in 1890 died in a circus in Copenhagen; and a fragment of the
head of an Elephant, which has been got in exchange from Prof. Stoss in Munich.

2) The major part of the material has been obtained in the course of time from the Zoological Gardens of Copenhagen, to which institution we are
largely indebted. Some few forms we have ourselves collected or purchased, or obtained through the benevolence of our colleague, the celebrated Mammalogist
of Stockholm, Prof. W. Leche, to whom we express our best thanks.