230 ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS. 



into it. The attitude was so grotesque and imploring, 

 that it was impossible to deny him. In their native 

 condition, elephants eat the young juicy roots and 

 branches of trees, the latter of which they beat two or 

 three times before they take them, and they then tuck 

 them into the left side of their mouths. They also 

 devour grass and bulbous roots, which they pull up with 

 their proboscis. The vast numbers in which the herds 

 assemble give some extent of the vegetable riches which 

 can support such colossal eaters from generation to 

 generation. The weight of an ordinary one will be 7000 

 Ibs., and the mind becomes bewildered in thinking of 

 the quantity required for the daily sustenance of thou- 

 sands of such animals. They open paths through 

 forests which would be impenetrable to others, and 

 seem to exercise much judgment in choosing their route, 

 the large bull elephants taking the lead, crushing the 

 jungle, tearing down the branches, and uprooting the 

 trees. The females and the young, sometimes amount- 

 ing to three hundred, march after in single file, and the 

 way thus made is as smooth as a gravel walk. They 

 often carry branches of trees, with which they flap the 

 insects from their bodies as they walk along. 



A settler's wife complained to Mr. Pringle very 

 bitterly of the destruction occasioned to her husband's 

 crops by the elephants, which she with reason said 

 were too big to wrestle with, and they occasionally 

 seemed to commit mischief from mere wantonness. In 

 the same place a troop came down one dark and rainy 

 night to the outskirts of the village ; but knowing that 

 it was sometimes dangerous to encounter them, the in- 

 habitants did not go out, although they heard them 

 making a terrible bellowing and uproar. It appeared 



