126 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Food Longevity. 



with it. Buffon remarks, that an elephant has 

 been observed dusting himself in this manner se- 

 veral tirnes in a day; and always at the most 

 proper season,, namely, after bathing. 



The natural food of these animals is grass, and 

 when that is wanting they dig up roots with their 

 tusks. They have a very acute sense of smelling, 

 by which they readily find out their food, and 

 avoid all noxious herbage. When tamed, they 

 eat hay, oats, barley, &c. and drink a vast quan- 

 tity of water, sucking it up by the trunk, as we 

 have already observed, and thence conveying it 

 to the mouth. It appears to have been a custom 

 to give them spirituous liquors when they went 

 to battle, in order to make them inebriated and 

 furious. 



The elephant is said to live to a great age, 

 even to a hundred and twenty, two hundred, 

 or three hundred years. Tavernier, who travel- 

 led into India, says, he never could learn exactly 

 how long the elephant lived; but one of the 

 keepers told him, that he knew such an elephant 

 to have been in his great grand-father's, grand- 

 father's, and father's custody, which he computed 

 not to have been less than a hundred and twenty 

 or thirty years. It is, indeed, generally allowed, 

 that this animal lives to a great age, though it is 

 subject to several distempers. 



Elephants take great care of their young, rather 

 chusing to lose their own lives than that they 

 should lose theirs. They always go in herds, the 



