1 6 The Wild Elephant. 



which in any other position it would be almost impos- 

 sible to use offensively.^ 



Mr. Mercer, who in 1846 was the principal civil officer 

 of Government at Badulla, sent me a jagged fragment 

 of an elephant's tusk, about five inches in diameter, and 

 weighing between twenty and thirty pounds, which had 

 been brought to him by some natives, who, being at- 

 tracted by a noise in the jungle, witnessed a combat 

 between a tusker and one without tusks, and saw the 

 latter with his trunk seize one of the tusks of his anta- 

 gonist and wrench from it the portion in question, which 

 measured two feet in length. 



Here the trunk was shown to be the more powerful 

 offensive weapon of the two ; but I apprehend that the 

 chief reliance of the elephant for defence is on its pon- 

 derous weight, the pressure of its foot being sufficient 

 to crush any minor assailant after being prostrated by 

 means of its trunk. Besides, in using its feet for this 

 purpose, it derives a wonderful facility from the peculiar 

 formation of the knee-joint in the hind leg, which, en- 

 abling it to swing the hind feet forward close to the 

 ground, assists it to toss the body alternately from foot 

 to foot, till deprived of life.^ 



' A writer in the Indian Sporting the persecution of the Jews by Pto- 



Review for October 1S57 says a male lemy Philopater, B.C. 210, states that 



elephant was killed by two others close the king swore vehemently that he 



to his camp: " the head was completely would send them into the other world, 



smashed in; there was a large hole in "foully trampled to death by the 



the side, and the abdomen was ripped knees and feet of elephants" (TreVi/zeir 



open. The latter wound was given cts o5>)>' kv yovaai koX trocrX OripCiov 



probably after it had fallen." (P. 175.) jJitta/ueVous. 3 Mac. v. 42). /Elian 



' In the Third Book of Maccabees, makes the remark, that elephants on 



which is not printed in our Apocrypha, such occasions use their knees as well 



but appears in the series in the Greek as their feet to crush their victim. 



Septuagint, the author, in describing [Hist. Attiin. viii. 10.) 



