92 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. II. 
bing their skins with a soft stone, a lump of burnt clay, 
or the coarse husk of a coco-nut. This kind of at- 
tention, together with the occasional application of oil, 
gives rise to the deeper black which the hides of the 
latter present. 
Amongst the native Singhalese, however, a singular 
preference is evinced for elephants that exhibit those 
flesh-coloured blotches which occasionally mottle the skin 
of an elephant, chiefly about the head and extremities. 
The front of the trunk, the tips of the ears, the forehead, 
and occasionally the legs, are thus diversified with stains 
of a yellowish tint, inclining to pink. These are not 
natural; nor are they hereditary, for they are seldom 
exhibited by the younger individuals in a herd, but ap- 
pear to be the result of some eruptive affection, the irri- 
tation of which has induced the animal in its uneasiness 
to rub itself against the rough bark of trees, and thus to 
destroy the outer cuticle. 1 
To a European these spots appear blemishes, and the 
taste that leads the natives to admire them is probably 
akin to the feeling that has at all times rendered a white 
elephant an object of wonder to Asiatics. The rarity 
of the latter is accounted for by regarding this peculiar 
appearance as the result of albinism ; and notwithstand- 
ing the exaggeration of Oriental historians, who compare 
the fairness of such creatures to the whiteness of snow, 
even in its utmost perfection, I apprehend that the tint 
of a white elephant is little else than a flesh-colour, 
rendered somewhat more conspicuous by the blanching 
of the skin, and the lightness of the colourless hairs by 
1 This is confirmed by the fact of those which have been captured 
that the scar of the ancle wound, by noosing, presents precisely the 
occasioned by the rope on the legs same tint in the healed parts. 
