ELEPHANT — EMOTIONS. 393 



The elephant in many respects displays strange pe- 

 culiarities of emotional temperament. Thus Mr. Corse 

 says : — ' If a wild elephant happens to be separated from 

 its young for only two or three days, though giving sucky 

 she never after recognises or acknowledges it ; ' ^ yet the 

 young one knows its dam, and cries plaintively for her 

 assistance. 



Again, in the wild state, the spirit of exclusiveness 

 shown by members of a herd (i.e. family) towards elephants 

 of other herds is remarkable. Sir E. Tennent writes : — 



If by any accident an elephant becomes hopelessly separated 

 from his own herd, he is not permitted to attach himself to any 

 other. He may browse in the vicinity, or frequent the same 

 place to drink and to bathe ; but the intercourse is only on a 

 distant and conventional footing, and no famiHarity or intimate 

 association is imder any circumstances permitted. To such a 

 height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror 

 of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his 

 own party in the melee and confusion, has been driven iuto the 

 enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in 

 every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by 

 heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted to in- 

 sinuate himself within the circle which they had formed for 

 common security. There can be no reasonable doubt that this 

 jealous and exclusive policy not only contributes to produce, but 

 mainly serves to perpetuate, the class of solitary elephants which 

 are known by the term goondahs in India, and which from their 

 vicious propensities and predatory habits are called Hora, or 

 Rogues, in Ceylon. ^ 



The emotional temper, or rather transformation of 

 emotional psychology, which is exhibited by the Eogues 

 here mentioned, is as extraordinary as it is notorious. 

 From being a peaceable, sympathetic, and magnanimous 

 animal, the elephant, when excluded from the society of 

 its kind, becomes savage, cruel, and morose to a degree un- 

 equalled in any other animal. The repulsive accounts of 

 the bloodthirsty rage and wanton destructiveness of Eogues 

 show that their actions are not due to sudden bursts of 

 fury at the sight of man or his works, but rather to a 



' Philosophical Transactions, 1873. 

 '^ Natural History of Ceylon y^. 114. 



