360 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



pursued an elephant which he had wounded, the irritated 

 animal suddenly turned round, and singling out from the 

 rest the person by whom he had been wounded, seized him 

 with his trunk, and lifting his wretched victim high in the 

 air, dashed him with dreadful force to the ground. His com- 

 panions struck with horror, fled precipitately from the fatal 

 scene, unable to turn their eyes to behold the rest of the 

 tragedy; but on the following day they repaired to the spot, 

 where they collected the few bones that could be found, and 

 buried them near the spring. The enraged animal had not 

 only trampled his body literally to pieces, but could not feel 

 its vengeance satisfied till it had pounded the very flesh into 

 the dust, so that nothing of this unfortunate man remained 

 excepting a few of the larger bones*. 



We shall here take occasion to hazard a few observations 

 on instinct in general, and on the intellectual endowments 

 of the mammalia in particular, and shall endeavour to illus- 

 trate the subject by the introduction of a few anecdotes of 

 the Elephant, not before in printf, the authority for which 

 anecdotes is not to be impeached ; most of them, indeed, 

 are capable of verification by the testimony, not' merely of 

 those on whose veracity they are given, but also of many 

 more eye-witnesses. 



When we consider how very much of material nature 

 around us remains to be explained and understood ; how 

 imperfectly the various substantive objects of our senses, 

 with all their essential qualifications and incidents are in 

 general comprehended, we need not be surprised that im- 



* Mr. BurchelPs Travels in Southern Africa. 



t To copy all the stories of these animals on authority good, bad, 

 and indifferent, would swell this article to an inconvenient magni- 

 tude ; to select from them would be invidious, while confining 

 ourselves exclusively to those here stated, will sufficiently answer 

 our purpose of displaying the intellectual qualities of the species, 

 and analogically of the brute creation in general. 



