68 EARS 



In this instance it is " my lord the elephant." That 

 he has no need to concern himself about any blood- 

 thirsty beast that may be lurking in the jungle is 

 not more obvious than that his ears are the biggest 

 in the world. Now there are two ways of getting 

 rid of an obstruction of this kind. One is to betake 

 yourself to your thinking chair and pipe and to rake 

 up the possibilities of the Pleiocene and Meiocene 

 ages, and prove that when the immense ear of the 

 elephant was evolved there must have been some 

 carnivorous monster, some sabre-toothed tiger or 

 cave bear, which preyed on elephants. 



The other way is to get acquainted with the 

 elephant, cultivate an intimacy with him, and find 

 out what his ears are to him. I prefer the second 

 way. I would patiently watch him as he stands 

 drowsily under an umbrageous banian tree on a 

 sultry day before the monsoon has burst and re- 

 freshed earth and air. So might I note that his ears 

 are incessantly moving, but not turning this way and 

 that to catch sounds — just flapping, flapping, as if 

 to cool his great temples. So have I seen the 

 gigantic fruit bats, called flying foxes in India, 

 hanging in hundreds in the upper branches of a tall 

 peepul tree at noon, feeling too hot to sleep, and all 

 fanning themselves in unison with one wing — a 

 comic spectacle. And at each flap of the elephant's 

 ears I would observe that a cloud of flies (for the 

 elephant is not too great to be pestered by the 

 despicable hordes of beggars for blood) were dis- 



