Peaceful and harmless. 9 



males, whilst the necessity for their use extends alike to 

 both sexes. The same consideration serves to demon- 

 strate the fallacy of the conjecture, that the tusks of the 

 elephant were given as weapons of offence, for if such 

 were the case the vast majority of them in Ceylon, males 

 as well as females, would be left helpless in presence of 

 an assailant. But although in their conflicts with one 

 another, those which are provided with tusks may occa- 

 sionally push clumsily with them at an opponent, it is a 

 misapprehension to imagine that tusks are designed, as 

 has been stated, to serve " in warding off the attacks of 

 the wily tiger and the furious rhinoceros, often securing 

 the victory by one blow which transfixes the assailant to 

 the earth." ^ 



So peaceable and harmless is the life of the elephant, 

 that nature appears to have left it unprovided with any 

 special weapon of offence : the trunk is too delicate an 

 organ to be rudely employed in a conflict with other 

 animals, and although on an emergency it may push or 

 gore with its tusks (to which the French have hastily 

 given the designation of ^'■defenses"), their almost ver- 

 tical position, added to the difficulty of raising its head 

 above the level of the shoulder, is inconsistent with the 

 idea of their being designed for attack, since it is impos- 

 sible for the animal to deliver an effectual blow, or to 



' Menageries, etc. published by the viously existing regarding the elephant. 

 Society for the Diffusion of Useful The author incorporates no speculations 

 Knowledge, vol. i. p. 68: "The Ele- of his own, but has most diligently and 

 phant," ch. iii. It will be seen that I agreeably arranged all the facts col- 

 have quoted repeatedly from this vo- lected by his predecessors. The story 

 lume, because it is the most compendious of antipathy between the elephant and 

 and careful compilation with which I rhinoceros is probably borrowed from 

 am acquainted of the information pre- jElian de Nat. lib. xvii. c. 44. 



