XXIU 



habit. The pace adopted by the elephant on his migcations is the 

 walk— only when frightened or annoyed does he assume any 

 faster rate of locomotion. "When he comes to a river he forJa it if 

 the bottom be good and the water not deep but he crosses deeper 

 rivers by swimming, his body being well down in the water and 

 only the end of the trunk out for breathing purposes. He is 

 proverbially sure footed and will often travel over very rough 

 ground, he has been known to charge uphill or down, never falling 

 although constantly making false steps or slipping (Young Shi- 

 karry). The march of the herd, in consequence of the conforma- 

 tion of the foot and the soft nature of the ground traversed, is 

 remarkably silent, so much so as to prove a means of protection 

 against Shikarees. The elephant is said to sleep only 2 — 4 hours 

 and in the wild state he generally reclines flat on his side. 



The progress of the wild elephant through his migrative 

 voracious life is varied in its even tenor in various ways. 

 Sometimes while engaged in rooting up bulbs and other 

 dainty morsels of food with his tusks or obtaining leaves and 

 branches by means of the trunk, he is set upon by carnivores, 

 but few of whom, however, dare assault the giant of the forest, 

 Again, Elephants sometimes fall victims to inundations, and, 

 perhaps, jungle fires, or to starvation in seasons of drought. But 

 their direst enemy is man. In vain does the whole race retire 

 from the energetic forest destroyinghuman being, vainare strength 

 and valour against firearms and other ingenious lethal devices 

 of man. Snares and pitfalls sadly reduce their numbers — and it 

 seems that, after survival through many vicissitudes and ages, 

 the race of elephants must at length be exterminated by Mankind. 

 Their non-extermination hitherto has been accounted for already 

 as being to an extent due to certain points of conformation, it is 

 dependent also on longevity. Sanderson says " I think it by no 

 means improbable, looking to their peculiar dentition and other 

 circumstances that elephants live to 150 or 200 years." The natives 

 of India attribute to them an average life of 80 years, but fix 120 

 as the maximum. Some domesticated elephants have, like old 

 trees, become historical ; thus Tenneut tells us that "amongst, 

 the papers left by Col. Kobertson, who held command in Ceylon 

 in 1799 shortly after the capture of the Island by the British, I 

 have found a memorandum showing that Decoy was then att-ach- 



