C a«9 1 

 X. 



An Account of the Method of catching wild ELEPHANTS at 



TlPURAo 



By JOHN CORSE, Efq. 



TN the month of November, when the weather has become co©l, and the 

 fwamps and marines, formed by the rains in the five preceding months s 

 are leflened, and fome of them dried up, a number of people are employed 

 to go in queft of elephants. 



At this feafon the males come from the receffes of the foreft into the 

 borders and outskirts thereof, whence they make nocturnal excurfions into 

 the plains in fearch of food, and where they often deftroy the labors of 

 the hufbandman, by devouring and trampling down the rice, fugar canes, 

 &c. that they meet with a herd or drove of elephants, from what I can 

 learn, has never been feen to leave the woods : fome of the largeft males 

 often ftray to a confiderable diftance, but the young ones always remain in 

 the foreft under the protection of the Palmai, or leader of the herd, and of 

 the larger elephants. The Goondahs, or large males, come out fingly or 

 in fmall parties, fometimes in the morning, but commonly in the evening, 

 and they continue to feed all night upon the long grafs, that grows amid/l 

 the fwamps and marfhes, and of which they are extremely fond. As often 

 however as they have an opportunity, they commit depredations on the rice 

 fields, fugar canes and plantain trees, that are near, which oblige the far- 

 mers to keep regular watch, under a fmall cover, erecled on the tops of a 

 few long bamboos, about 14 feet from the ground : and this precaution is 



