Anecdote of Sagacity. 19 



training, the elephant discovers a new use for its tusks 

 when employed in moving stones and piling timber ; so 

 much so that a powerful one will raise and carry on them 

 a log of half a ton weight or more. One evening, whilst 

 riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards the scene of 

 the massacre of Major Davie's party in 1803, my horse 

 evinced some excitement at a noise which approached 

 us in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repeti- 

 tion of the ejaculation urmph ! urmph ! in a hoarse and 

 dissatisfied tone. A turn in the forest explained the 

 mystery, by bringing me face to face with a tame ele- 

 phant, unaccompanied by any attendant. He was la- 

 bouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber, which 

 he balanced across his tusks, but the pathway being 

 narrow, he was forced to bend his head to one side to 

 permit the load to pass endways ; and the exertion and 

 this inconvenience combined led him to utter the dis- 

 satisfied sounds which disturbed the composure of my 

 horse. On seeing us halt, the elephant raised his head, 

 reconnoitred us for a moment, then flung down the 

 timber, and voluntarily forced himself backwards among 

 the brushwood so as to leave a passage, of which he ex- 

 pected us to avail ourselves. My horse hesitated : the 

 elephant observed it, and impatiently thrust himself still 



presence of the tusks, the absence of " a species of safety valve of the animal 

 all apparent use serving to distinguish oeconomy," — and that " they owe their 

 them from the essential organs of the development to the predominance of the 

 creature, Dr. Holland concludes that senses of touch and smell, conjointly 

 their production is a process incident, with the muscular motions of which 

 but not ancillary, to other important the exercise of these is accompanied." 

 ends, especially connected with the " Had there been no proboscis," he 

 vital functions of the trunk and the thinks, " there would have been no sup- 

 marvellous motive powers inherent to plementary appendages, — the former 

 it; his conjecture is, that they are creates the latter." (Pp. .?46, 271.) 



