82 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. II. 
are recorded as having been caused by elephants, 15 by 
buffaloes, 6 by crocodiles, 2 by boars, 1 by a bear, and 
68 by serpents (the great majority of the last class of 
sufferers being women and children, who had been 
bitten during the night). Little more than three fatal 
accidents occurring annually on the average of five years, 
is certainly a very small proportion in a population 
estimated at a million and a half, in an island abounding 
with elephants, with which, independently of casual 
encounters, voluntary conflicts are daily stimulated by 
the love of sport or the hope of gain. Were the ele- 
phants instinctively vicious or even highly irritable in 
their temperament, the destruction of human life under 
the circumstances must have been infinitely greater. It 
must also be taken into account, that some of the 
accidents recorded may have occurred in the rutting 
season, when elephants are subject to fits of temporary 
fury, known in India by the term must, in Ceylon 
mudcla, — a paroxysm which speedily passes away, but 
during the fury of which it is dangerous even for the 
mahout to approach those ordinarily the gentlest and 
most familiar. 
But, then, the elephant is said to "entertain an 
extraordinary dislike to all quadrupeds; that dogs 
running near him produce annoyance ; that he is alarmed 
if a hare start from her form;" and from Pliny to 
Buffon every naturalist has recorded its supposed aversion 
to swine. 1 These alleged antipathies are in a great 
degree, if not entirely, imaginary. The habits of the 
elephant are essentially harmless, its wants lead to no 
rivalry with other animals, and the food to which it is 
1 Menageries, tjr., "The Elephant," ch. iii. 
