THICK-SKINNED QUADRUPEDS. 177 



from six ft) eight feet, and they weigh from sixty to a hundred 

 pounds each. 



The females, unlike Asiatic Elephants in this respect, are 

 likewise provided with tusks. Old bull elephants are found singly 

 or in pairs, or consorting together in small herds, varying from six 

 to twenty individuals. The younger bulls remain for many years 

 in the company of their mothers, and these are met together in 

 large herds of from twenty to a hundred individuals. The food 

 of the elephant consists of the branches, leaves, and roots of trees, 

 and also of a variety of bulbs, of the situation of which he is 

 advised by his exquisite sense of smell. To obtain these he turns 

 up the ground with his tusks, and whole acres may be seen thus 

 ploughed up. 



The following account of elephant catching in Nep^l is by 

 a medical gentleman residing at Segouly : — " The whole batch, 

 tame and wild ones, then rushed into a deep river close by, where 

 it was a splendid sight 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 mon- 

 keys, and dexterously taking the opportunity of the confusion to 

 secure the dreaded noose round their necks. One of the wild 

 elephants in the struggle got half-drowned, and then entirely 

 strangled ; she just staggered to the shore, and then dropped dead 

 without a struggle. It was really quite piteous to see her poor 

 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 cries, and lying down by her 

 side as if it were to comfort her. 



" When 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 tusks, and 

 looked on with the most curious air of pity and contempt, as they 

 gradually, despite its violent struggles, pushed it away from its 



M 



