LAW REGARDING RECAPTURED RUNAWAY ELEPHANTS. 77 



with a spiked mallet. This impels an elephant to much greater exertions 

 than any use of the driver's goad will, though that inducement is by no 

 means omitted. 



Thus equipped the elephants approach the wild ones. These at once 

 make off, and the chase commences through or over everything, the men sav- 

 ing themselves from being swept off, if the jungle is thick, as best they can. 

 Where the ground is favourable two tame elephants endeavour to range up 

 on opposite sides of a fleeing wild one, encouraged thereto by the unlimited 

 use of the a 'posteriori argument of the mallet man. When the elephants 

 are well up with the wild one the nooses are cast, and generally encircle its 

 neck. If this is effected the tame elephants are checked, and other nooses 

 are soon secured, but the choking of the wild one, or fatal accidents to the 

 tame ones or their riders, by being pulled over or dragged into ravines, are 

 not unusual accompaniments of this rough work. 



Hand-noosing is practised only in Ceylon, where a couple of hunters on 

 foot manage with wonderful skill and activity to noose the hind-legs of an 

 elephant when running away, and to secure the trailing ends of the rope to 

 a tree as it passes. 



It has not unfrequently happened in Bengal, where numbers of ele- 

 phants are kept by native land -owners, that animals have escaped and 

 joined wild herds, and have been recaptured along with them in the Govern- 

 ment kheddahs. The question of ownership of such elephants has often 

 been raised. The following is a case on appeal, decided in the High Court 

 of Judicature, Calcutta, in favour of the Government establishment that 

 recaptured an escaped elephant : — 



Plaintiff, a zemindar, alleged that he had the female elephant in ques- 

 tion in possession for six years, when she fled to the jungles. He made dili- 

 gent search for her, and reported her loss at the nearest district police station. 

 He heard a year later that she had been recaptured in the Sylhet District, 

 in the Government kheddahs. His claim to the animal being rejected by 

 the Superintendent of Kheddahs, he instituted a suit for her recovery in the 

 Court of the Collector of Sylhet. The Collector gave judgment in favour 

 of the Superintendent of Kheddahs on behalf of Government. Plaintiff 

 thereupon appealed to the High Court of Judicature, Calcutta, but his appeal 

 was dismissed on the grounds that such animals being originally ferm 

 naturae, are no longer the property of man than while they continue in his 

 keeping. If at any time they regain their natural liberty his property 

 ceases, unless they have animus revcrtandi, which is only to be known by 

 their usual custom of returning — or unless instantly pursued by their owner, 

 for during such pursuit his property remains. In this case pursuit had 

 ceased, and the animal had returned to its natural and independent state. 



