A Herd. 45 



ensure his own safety as Avell as that of objects which it 

 is expedient to avoid touching. 



A herd of elephants is a family, not a group Avhoni 

 accident or attachment may have induced to associate 

 together. Similarity of features and caste attest that, 

 among the various individuals which compose it, there 

 is a common lineage and relationship. In a herd of 

 twenty-one elephants, captured in 1844, the trunks of 

 each individual presented the same peculiar formation, 

 ---long, and almost of one uniform breadth throughout, 

 instead of tapering gradually from the root to the nostril. 

 In another instance, the eyes of thirty-five taken in one 

 corral were of the same colour in each. The same slope 

 •of the back, the same form of the forehead, is to be de- 

 tected in the majority of the same group. 



In the forest several herds sometimes browse in 

 close contiguity, and in their expeditions in search of 

 water they may form a body of possibly one or two 

 hundred ; but on the slightest disturbance each distinct 

 herd hastens to re-form within its own particular circle, 

 and to ' take measures on its own behalf for retreat or 

 defence. 



The natives of any place which may chance to be fre- 

 quented by elephants, observe that the numbers of the 

 same herd fluctuate very slightly ; and hunters in pur- 

 suit of them, who may chance to have shot one or more, 

 always reckon with certainty the precise number of 

 those remaining, although a considerable interval may 

 intervene before they again encounter them. The pro- 

 portion of males is generally small, and some herds have 



