Heio:ht. 



African species, that of Ceylon seldom exceeds the height 

 of nine feet ; even in the Hambangtotte country, where 

 the hunters agree that the largest specimens are to be 

 found, the tallest in ordinary herds do not average 

 more than eight feet. Wolf, in his account of the 

 Ceylon elephant, • says he saw one taken near Jaffna, 

 which measured twelve feet and one inch high. But the 

 truth is, that the general bulk of the elephant so far 

 exceeds that of the animals we are accustomed to see 

 daily, that the imagination magnifies its unusual dimen- 

 sions ; and I have seldom or ever met with an inex- 

 perienced spectator who did not unconsciously over- 

 estimate the size of an elephant shown to him, whether 

 in captivity or in a state of nature. Major Denham 

 would have guessed some which he saw in Africa to be 

 sixteen feet in height, but the largest when killed was 

 found to measure nine feet six, from the foot to the hip- 

 bone.2 



For a creature of such extraordinary weight it is 

 astonishing how noiselessly and stealthily the elephant 



' Wolf's Life atui advoittires, etc. his narrative gives a curious insight into 



p. 164. Wolf was a native of Mecklen- the policy of the Dutch Government, 



burg, who arrived in Ceylon about 1750, and of the condition of the natives 



as chaplain in one of the Dutch East under their dominion. 

 Indiamen, and having been taken into ■ Denham's Travels, etc. 410, p. 2?o. 



the Government employment, he served Fossil remains of the Indian elephant 



for twenty years at Jaffna, first as have been discovered at Jabalpur, 



Secretary to the Governor, and after- showing a height of fifteen feet. [Jourti. 



wards in an office the duties of which As/at. Sec. Beiig. vi.) Professor 



he describes to be the examination and Ansted in his Ancient World, p. 197, 



signature of the " writings which served says he was informed by Dr. Falconer 



to commence a suit in any of the courts " that out of eleven hundred elephants 



of justice." His book embodies a from which the tallest were selected 



truthful and generally accurate account and measured with care, on one occasion 



of the northern portion of the island, in India, there was not one whose height 



with which alone he was conversant, and equalled eleven feet. " 



