30 The Wild Elephant. 



threatened danger. As this strange sound is generally 

 mingled with the bellowing and ordinary trumpeting of 

 the herd, it is in all probability a device resorted to, not 

 alone for warning their companions of some approaching 

 peril, but also for the additional purpose of terrifying 

 unseen intruders.^ 



Elephants are subject to deafness ; and the Singhalese 

 regard as the most formidable of all wild animals, a 

 " rogue " ^ afflicted with this infirmity. 



Extravagant estimates are recorded of the height of 

 the elephant. In an age when popular fallacies in re- 

 lation to him Avere as yet uncorrected in Europe by the 

 actual inspection of the living animal, he was supposed 

 to grow to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Even 

 within the last century, in popular works on natural his- 

 tory, the elephant, when full grown, was said to measure 

 from seventeen to twenty feet from the ground to the 

 shoulder.3 At a still later period, so imperfectly had 

 the truth been ascertained, that the elephant of Ceylon 

 was believed " to excel that of Africa in size and 

 strength."'' But so far from equalling the size of the 



' Pallegoix, in his Description du Oct. 1857. " Elephants were measured 



Royaiime Tliai ou Siam, adverts to a formerly, and even now, by natives, as 



sound produced by the elephant when to their height, by throwing a rope over 



weary : " quand il est fatigue, ilfrappe them, the ends brought to the ground 



la terre avec sa troinpe, et en tire un on each side, and half the length taken 



son semblable a celui du cor.'' (Tom. i. as the true height. Hence the origin 



p. 151.) of elephants fifteen and sixteen feet 



'^ For an explanation of the term high. A rod held at right angles to 



"rogue" as applied to an elephant, see the measuring rod, and parallel to the 



p, 47. ground, will rarely give more than ten 



' Natural History of Animals. By feet, the majority being under nine." 



SirJoHNHiLL, M.D. London, 1748 52, (P. 159.) 



p. 565. A probable source of these * Shaw's Zoology. Lond. 1S06. vol. 



false estimates is mentioned by a writer i. p. 216; Armandi, Nisi. Milii. dcs 



in the Indian Spotting Revieiu lor Elephatits,\\\.\. Ai.\. "^^ "i. 



