A CHAT ABOUT INDIAN WILD BEASTS. 169 
from a Hare or small Deer; and a Pea-fowl or Partridge getting 
up with a whirr under their trunks would set them quaking with 
fear. 
Although in the wild state Elephants feed not far from 
Rhinoceroses, and there is no antagonism between them, yet when 
caught and trained, the very noise made by a Rhinoceros will 
send them to the rightabout. 
Tame Elephants are very subject to epidemics. It is to them 
what the rinderpest is to cattle,—they die off like rotten Sheep. 
The only hope of saving the stud is to scatter the animals as far 
apart as possible, and to let them loose to feed on aquatic plants, 
which grow in most of the large bheels of India. Elephants, 
like other animals, must die; yet during thirty years’ wanderings 
in India, and of over three in Africa, I never came across the 
remains of an Hlephant that had joined the majority through 
natural causes. What then becomes of their ponderous skeletons? 
Some say that the bones are consumed in the periodical fires; 
but what becomes of the massive skulls and tusks? I have seen 
every other wild animal of India dead, or rather have come across 
their remains; but though I had to wander over jungles in Burma 
and Assam for over twenty-one years, which were swarming with 
these pachyderms, I never came across the remains of a single 
one. Can the tales we read of in the ‘ Arabian Nights’ be true, 
that when an Elephant feels his last hours or days near at hand 
he retires to their Golgotha, and there dies? LEven if that were 
the case, how is it no such treasure trove has ever been found ? 
I never met anybody—European or native—who had ever seen 
the remains of a dead Hlephant unless it had previously been 
killed by human agency. 
Elephants utter peculiar sounds to denote peculiar meanings. 
A whistling noise produced by the trunk indicates satisfaction ; 
when they trumpet or utter a hoarse sharp scream, it is a sign of 
rage; a noise made by the mouth like “‘pr-rut-pr-rut”’ is a sign 
of alarm; so is the striking of the trunk on the ground accom- 
panied by a pitiful cry; whilst a noise like “urmp-urmp”’ denotes 
impatience or dissatisfaction. 
Elephants are caught in Keddahs, in pitfalls, and noosed off 
other Elephants specially trained for that purpose. 
They snore a good deal when asleep, and I have seen them 
