Judith Thayer, age 14, of Duxbury, Mass.
What use is an elephant’s trunk?
Jumbos trunk rates as one of the seven wonders of the animal world. Actually, it is not a trunk in the sense of a tree trunk, nor is it any part of the trunk of his body, The name arose from a mistake, It was confused with the French word trompe, which means trumpet or nose, The elephant's long snaky trunk is really an extension of his nose and upper lip. And without it, he would be lost.
The big fellow is a vegetarian and in the wild he needs about a quarter ton of green salad every day of his life, He is far too tall and bulky to bend down and gather these greens from the ground. Nor can he reach up to pluck foliage from the tall boughs. For these jobs, he uses his wonderful trunk.
The tip of the trunk has one or two lobes that act as fingers. It is a prehensile, or grasping, trunk and one of its main duties is to gather bunches of food. With each bunch, it curves down and under to stuff the food into Jumbo’s big mouth. Some people think that the elephant drinks through his trunk, but this is not so. He sucks up water through the trunk and when he gets a trunk full, he squirts the drink into his mouth.
This trick is useful when Jumbo finds himself in a muddy stream, for the big fellow dearly loves a mud bath. He sucks up a trunk full of soupy mud and swings the trunk around to squirt it over his head, his back or wherever he needs a mud plaster. Sometimes he uses the trunk to douse himself with dust, for he also enjoys a dust bath. And sometimes he uses the same trick to give himself a bath of just plain water.
It is estimated that there are 40,000 different muscles in the mighty trunk. Though the skin on the outer side is tough and strong, on the under side it is soft and sensitive.
Jumbo is always careful to protect the tender underside and sometimes he goes around with the trunk curved under.
He is more often seen walking along with his great trunk swinging gently from side to side. Remember his trunk is part of his nose and a nose is the organ of smell, Jumbo’s monstrous nose has a sense of smell in keeping with its size. This is lucky for the elephant who has poor eyesight and, even with those big ears, his hearing is far from good. The sense of smell and touch in his wonderful trunk makes up for these shortcomings. He uses it to test the wind and scent friends or enemies, to test the ground and feel out objects in his path.
As you would expects the big, well‑exercised trunk is strong. It can be used to lift almost a ton high above the ground. When provoked, an elephant has been known to use his trunk to lift a man and hurl him 40 feet. Yet the trunk is also used to show affection. Mrs. Jumbo uses her trunk softly to stroke and pet her bulky baby.