ELEPHANT HUNTING, ETC. 213 



game does not give the holder the right to shoot on private 

 land without the landowner's permission.* 



Elephant hunting is so severely restricted in India that 

 the protection afforded the remaining herds seems to be 

 quite effective. They are limited to forest land in Coorg, 

 Mysore, Travancore, Orissa, and the northeastern part of 

 the lower reaches of the Himalayas. The trumpeting of 

 the elephant when in deadly peril is a most impressive sound, 

 and we are told that it had such a charm for an especially 

 bloodthirsty ruler, Mihirakula, king of the White Huns in 

 the sixth century A. D., that he caused elephants to be cast 

 over a precipice in order to enjoy their piercing cry. He 

 had first heard this call of agony by chance when an ele- 

 phant fell over the precipice at the Gate of Kashmir, f 



Although a relatively small amount of the ivory worked 

 up in India is derived from Asiatic elephants, these animals 

 continue to be highly prized for their use in processions, 

 native State ceremonials, and for hunting, as well as for 

 the transportation of timber from the place where it has 

 been felled to a landing on the river down which it is to be 

 floated to its destination. The regularity and symmetry 

 of its massive proportions are the leading qualities sought 

 for in elephants for State and ceremonial use, while mere 

 physical force is prized in an elephant to be used for labour 

 or transportation. In the extensive forest tracts of India 

 all the way from the foothills of the Himalayas to the 

 southern part of the Indian Peninsula elephants may still 

 be found in a wild state, the strict protective legislation 

 having operated to save them from slaughter. The terri- 

 tory of Mysore is said to afford shelter to a greater number 



*From Summary of "Game Law Consolidation Ordinance, 1906," and Regulations 

 issued thereimder. 



t Andrews, "The Elephant in Art and Industry," in the Journal of Indian Art and Industry, 

 Vol. X, p. 54, 1903-4. 



