218 MAMMALIA. [Cuar. VII. 
tions, the activity of his eye, and the earnestness of his 
attitudes, can only be comprehended by being seen. In 
moving timber and masses of rock his trunk is the in- 
strument on which he mainly relies, but those which 
have tusks turn them to good account. To get a weighty 
stone out of a hollow an elephant will kneel down so as 
to apply the pressure of his head to move it upwards, 
then steadying it with one foot till he can raise himself, 
he will apply a fold of his trunk to shift it to its place, 
and fit it accurately in position: this done, he will step 
round to view it on either side, and adjust it with due 
precision. He appears to gauge his task by his eye, and 
to form a judgment whether the weight be proportion- 
ate to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he 
hesitates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars 
and shows temper. 
In clearing an opening through forest land, the power 
of the African elephant, and the strength ascribed to him 
by arecent traveller, as displayed in uprooting trees, have 
never been equalled or approached by anything I have 
seen of the elephant in Ceylon! or heard of them in India. 
the trees thus broken lay so thick 
1 « Here the trees were large and 
across one another, that it was 
handsome, but not strong enough 
to resist the inconceivable strength 
of the mighty monarch of these 
forests; almost every tree had half 
its branches broken short. by them 
and at every hundred yardsI came 
upon entire trees, and these, the 
largest in the forest, uprooted clean 
out of the ground, and broken short 
across their stems.”— A Hunter's 
Life in South Africa. By BR. Gor- 
pon Cummine, vol. ii. p. 305.— 
“ Spreading out from one another, 
they smash and destroy all the 
finest trees in the forest which 
happen to be in their course... . 
I have rode through forests where 
almost impossible to ride through 
the district.’— Jbid., p. 310. 
Mr. Gordon Cumming does not 
name the trees which he saw thus 
“uprooted” and ‘broken across,” 
nor has he given any idea of their 
size and weight; but Major Den- 
HAM, who observed like traces of 
the elephant in Africa, saw only 
small trees overthrown by them; 
and Mr. Prinetz, who had an 
opportunity of observing similar 
practices of the animals in the 
neutral territory of the Eastern 
frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, 
describes their ravages as being 
