The elephant has four teeth on either side, by which it munches its food, grinding it like so much barley-meal, and, quite apart from these, it has its great teeth, or tusks, two in number. In the male these tusks are comparatively large and curved upwards; in the female, they are comparatively small and point in the opposite direction; that is, they look downwards towards the ground. The elephant is furnished with teeth at birth, but the tusks are not then visible.