MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. III. 
cooper hammering a cask;" and Major Skinner is of 
opinion that it must be produced by the elephant strik- 
ing his sides rapidly and forcibly with his trunk. Mr. 
Cripps informs me that he has more than once seen an 
elephant, when surprised or alarmed, produce this sound 
by striking the ground forcibly with the flat side of 
the trunk ; and this movement was instantly succeeded 
by raising it again, and pointing it in the direction 
whence the alarm proceeded, as if to ascertain by the 
sense of smell the nature of the threatened danger. 
As this strange sound is generally mingled with the bel- 
lowing and ordinary trumpeting of the herd, it is in all 
probability a device resorted to, not alone for warning 
their companions of some approaching peril, but also 
for the additional purpose of terrifying unseen in- 
truders. 1 
Elephants are subject to deafness ; and the Singhalese 
regard as the most formidable of all wild animals, a 
"rogue" 2 afflicted with this infirmity. 
Extravagant estimates are recorded of the height of 
the elephant. In an age when popular fallacies in re- 
lation to him were as yet uncorrected in Europe by the 
actual inspection of the living animal, he was supposed 
to grow to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Even 
within the last century in popular works on natural his- 
tory, the elephant, when full grown, was said to measure 
from seventeen to twenty feet from the ground to the 
shoulder. 3 At a still later period, so imperfectly had 
J Pallegoix, in his Description a celui du cor." — Tom. i. p. 151. 
du Boyaume Thai ou Siam, adverts 2 For an explanation of the term 
to a sonnd produced by the ele- "rogue " as applied to an elephant, 
phant when weary : "quand il est seep. 115. 
fatigue, il frappe la terre avec sa 3 Natural History of Animals. 
trompe, et en tire un son semblable By Sir John Hill, M.D. London, 
