18G2.] A Memoir on tlie living Asiatic Species of Rhinoceros. 171 



with respect to the Elephant of Southern India, compared with the 

 E. sumatkanus of Ceylon, since these districts approach one ano- 

 ther very nearly. We have, it is true, no more reasons for answer- 

 ing these questions in the affirmative than the negative ; hut they 

 must be determined by ascertaining the facts, in order to know the 

 exact boundaries of the range of E. ikdictjs." 



On this subject, I have to remark, that (at the present time at 

 least,) the Elephant is cpiite as much an imported or introduced 

 animal in Bengal proper, as it is in Java ; for the very few that roam 

 the Rajmahal hills are known to be animals escaped from their 

 quondam human owners, and perhaps there may be some that are 

 the progeny of such escaped animals. The appellation of " Bengalese 

 Elephant," habitually made use of by Prof. Schlegel, is therefore 

 inappropriate ; although wild Elephants do exist, chiefly on 

 the eastern outskirts of the province, and along the base of the 

 Himalayas. I have not had the opportunity of examining the grind- 

 ers of wild Elephants from the peninsula of India ; but I have 

 lost no chance of examining those of wild Burmese Elephants, 

 which indicate the species to be indicus, as distinguished from stt- 

 matkanus. Even here I must remark, that the tame Elephants 

 employed at Moulmain, so celebrated for their intelligence in piling 

 timber, &c, (which feats I have witnessed,) and also those extensively 

 employed in the teak-forests of the interior, are brought down all 

 the way from the Shan states ; the Burmese method of hunting wild 

 Elephants proving successful only in procuring small individuals, 

 below the commissariat standard, and unequal to the labours impos- 

 ed by the timber-merchants. The entire Indo-Chinese region (or 

 1 trans-Gangetic India? though even ' Hither China' would much 

 better express the affinities of the human inhabitants,) would appear to 

 be emphatically the main habitat of E. TjSTDic tts, seemingly extending 

 down the Malayan peninsula in one direction, and along the south- 

 ern base of the Himalayas in another : there are still many in the 

 Deyra Boon ; and others in Cuttack, Central India, Malabar, &c, 

 which it has now become desirable to examine more critically. 



According to Professor Schlegel, — "The Elephant of Sumatra and 

 Ceylon (E. sumateanus) has small ears, like E. indicus ; and ap- 

 proaches this species also in the form of its skull, and the number 

 of the caudal vertebrae : but the laminae of its teeth are wider ; and 



