Chap. II.] 
THE ELEPHANT. 
89 
It is true that in captivity, and after a due course of 
training, the elephant discovers a new use for its tusks 
when employed in moving stones and piling timber ; so 
much so that a powerful one will raise and carry on them 
a log of half a ton weight or more. One evening, whilst 
riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards the scene of the 
massacre of Major Davie's party in 1803, my horse 
evinced some excitement at a noise which approached 
us in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repeti- 
tion of the ejaculation urmph! urmph! in a hoarse and 
dissatisfied tone. A turn in the forest explained the 
mystery, by bringing me face to face with a tame 
elephant, unaccompanied by any attendant. He was 
labouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber, 
which he balanced across his tusks, but the pathway 
being narrow, he was forced to bend his head to one side 
to permit it to pass endways ; and the exertion and this 
inconvenience combined led him to utter the dissatisfied 
sounds which disturbed the composure of my horse. On 
seeing us halt, the elephant raised his head, reconnoitred 
us for a moment, then flung down the timber, and volun- 
tarily forced himself backwards among the brushwood so 
as to leave a passage, of which he expected us to avail 
tion, as expressed in structural 
Appendages ;" but the conjecture 
of the author leaves the problem 
scarcely less obscure than before. 
Struck with the mere supplemental 
presence of the tusks, the absence 
of all apparent use serving to dis- 
tinguish them from the essential 
organs of the creature, Dr. Hol- 
land concludes that their produc- 
tion is a process incident, but not 
ancillary, to other important ends, 
especially connected with the vital 
functions of the trunk and the 
marvellous motive powers inherent 
to it ; his conjecture is, that they 
are " a species of safety valve 
of the animal oeconomy," — and that 
" they owe their development to 
the predominance of the senses of 
touch and smell, conjointly with 
the muscular motions of which the 
exercise of these is accompanied." 
" Had there been no proboscis," he 
thinks, " there would have been no 
supplementary appendages, — the 
former creates the latter." — Pp. 
246, 271. 
