VERTEBRATA. 



nil thoee which are used are taken from their native haunts and then trained. The modes of 

 Luring them are various: sometimes a large Dumber of the [ndian hunters combine and con- 

 trive to drive the herd into a strong inclosure, where they are separately subdued. Sometimes 

 the hunters proceed into the woods, accompanied by two trained females. When a herd is 

 met with, these a. Kane.' quietly, and l>y their blandishments so occupy the attention of any 



unfortunate male they c up with, that the hunters are enabled to tie his legs together and 



ti him t.. a tree. Bis treacherous companions now leave him to struggle j„ impotent rage, 

 until lie i- so Bubdued bj hunger and fatigue that the hunters can drive him home between their 

 two tain.' elephants. Sometimes, however, these hunting adventures are more exciting. The 

 following account is descriptive of an attempt to catch elephants in Nepaul: 



■ I he whole batch, tame and wild one-, then rushed into a deep river close by, where it was a 

 splendid Bight to see them swimming, fighting, diving, plunging, kicking, and bellowing in a most 

 frantic manner ; the mahouts — the riders on the tame ones— sticking to them like monkeys, and 

 dexterously taking the opportunity of the confusion to secure the dreaded noose round their 

 necks. One of the wild elephants in the straggle got half drowned, and then entirely strangled; 

 she just staggered to the shore, and then dropped dead without a struggle. It was really quite 



pit. - e her | r little young one, about ten days old; she kept walking round the body, 



pushing it, and trying to coax her dead mother to rise up, then uttering the most heart-rending 

 cri( 3, and King down by her side, as it were to comfort her. 



•• Wnen the contest was over, and the other elephants — tame ones — were brought up near the 

 corpse, the poor little thing, with the most indignant, though of course, unavailing valor, charged 

 on all sides at any elephant who came near, determined, evidently, to defend its mother, even 

 though dead, to the last. The tame ones of course were too sagacious to hurt it with their 

 tusk-, and looked on with the most curious air of pity and contempt, as they gradually, despite 

 its violent struggles, pushed it away from its mother to a place where it could be properly se- 

 cured and taken care of. Really its moans and endeavors to remain with its mother were quite 

 affecting." 



There are several castes or varieties of the elephant, as the Koomareah, meaning, of a princely 

 race; the Merghee, a hunting elephant; the male Dauntelah is noted for its large tusks; the 

 \fooknah have much smaller ones; the Goodnah are particularly large males, seldom captured, 

 and when taken, ferocious and destructive. Some of these cannot brook confinement, and lan- 

 guish and die in captivity. There is almost as much difference in the domestic elephants, as to 

 gait, docility, Btrength, and serviceableness, as in horses. 



The tu-ks of both species — the African as well as the Asiatic — still form, as they did from the 

 earliest periods, a valuable article of commerce. The ivory, which is now sought for useful pur- 

 pose b and ornaments of minor importance, such as knife-handles, billiard-balls, chess-men, combs, 

 a ■■-., was in great requesl with the ancient Greeks and Romans for various domestic uses, as well 

 as for the chrys-elephantine statuary rendered so famous by Phidias. Of these rich statues the 

 Minerva of the Parthenon, and especially the Olympian Jupiter, appear to have been the master- 

 pieces. Among the tusks found there arc some which indicate the rough usage these animals 

 have received from the hands of man. Sometimes a musket-ball has been found imbedded in one 

 without any aperture or mark to show how r it got there. In these cases, the ball has penetrated 

 the root of the tusk, and been pushed forward by successive growths of ivory as the tusk increased 

 in Bize. A spear-head has been found in the same position. It is said that forty-five thousand 

 elephant-tusks are brought every year to Sheffield, in England, at a cost of one hundred and thirty 

 thousand dollars. Five hundred persons are there occupied as ivory workers! 



The ehphant occupies the greater part of the warm countries of Asia, and the great islands of 

 Sumatra and Borneo. Those of the provinces of Chittagong are chiefly used in the service of 

 the East India Company, but those of the Birman territories and of Pegu are of a superior breed 

 These animals are abundant in the .southern part of Nepaul. Those found in Ceylon, having a 

 lighter and smaller head and higher fore-quarters than others, are supposed by Hodgson to be 

 distinct B] ies; at all events they are a marked variety. 



Prom time immemorial the Asiatic Elephant has been brought under the dominion of man,. 



