52 SOLITAR Y ELEPHANTS. 



A batch of seventy-nine that I despatched from Dacca to Barrackpur, near 

 Calcutta, in November 1875, had the Ganges and several of its large tidal 

 branches to cross. In the longest swim they were six hours without touch- 

 ing the bottom ; after a rest on a sand-bank, they completed the swim in 

 three more ; not one was lost. I have heard of more remarkable swims 

 than this. 



Much misconception exists on the subject of rogue, or solitary elephants. 

 The usually accepted belief that these elephants are turned out of the 

 herds by their companions or rivals is not correct. Most of the so-called 

 solitary elephants are the lords of some herds near. They leave their com- 

 panions at times to roam by themselves, usually to visit cultivation or open 

 country, whither less bold animals, and the females encumbered with calves, 

 hesitate to follow. Sometimes, again, they make the expedition merely for 

 the sake of solitude. They, however, keep more or less to the jungle where 

 their herd is, and follow its movements. Single elephants are also very 

 frequently young, not old, males — -animals not yet able to assert a position 

 for themselves in the herd, and debarred from much intimate association 

 with it by stronger rivals. They wander by themselves on the outskirts of 

 the herd, or two or three such are found together, so that solitary is rather a 

 misleading appellation. A really solitary elephant is, in my experience, and 

 according to native hunters, an animal rarely met with. I do not believe 

 in any male elephant being driven from its herd. If unable to cope with 

 some stronger rival, it has merely to keep on the outskirts and give way, 

 and it avoids molestation. I have seen this constantly; and where elephants 

 are really solitary I believe the life is quite of their own choosing. Young 

 males are only biding their time until they are able to meet all comers in 

 a herd. 



I once met with a remarkable instance of a young male elephant, about 

 two years old, which had lived a solitary life for three or four months. Its 

 mother had probably fallen into one of the numerous old elephant-pits on 

 the Billiga-rungun hills, and the calf must have remained near after the herd 

 left the vicinity. It subsequently took up its quarters in the low country, 

 and though one herd visited the locality, the young one was refused admis- 

 sion, and it remained in the same place after the herd left. I captured it 

 soon afterwards. 



Single male elephants spend their nights, and sometimes days, in predatory 

 excursions into rice and other fields in the immediate vicinity of villages. 

 They become disabused of many of the terrors which render ordinary ele- 

 phants timid and needlessly cautious. These elephants are by no means 

 always evilly disposed. A solitary elephant I knew intimately at Morlev 



