86 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. II. 



which such comparatively puny creatures entertain of 

 one so powerful and yet so gentle. 



Amongst elephants themselves, jealousy and other 

 causes of irritation frequently occasion contentions 

 between individuals of the same herd ; but on such oc- 

 casions it is their habit to strike with their trunks, and 

 to bear down their opponents with their heads. It is 

 doubtless correct that an elephant, when prostrated by 

 the force and fury of an antagonist of its own species, is 

 often wounded by the downward pressure of the tusks, 

 which in any other position it would be almost impos- 

 sible to use offensively. 1 



Mr. Mercer, who in 1846 was the principal civil 

 officer of Government at Badulla, sent me a jagged 

 fragment of an elephant's tusk, about five inches in 

 diameter, and weighing between twenty and thirty 

 pounds, which had been brought to him by some natives, 

 who, being attracted by a noise in the jungle, witnessed 

 a combat between a tusker and one without tusks, and 

 saw the latter with his trunk seize one of the tusks of 

 his antagonist and wrench from it the portion in ques- 

 tion, which measured two feet in length. 



Here the trunk was shown to be the more powerful 

 offensive weapon of the two ; but I apprehend that the 

 chief reliance of the elephant for defence is on its pon- 

 derous weight, the pressure of its foot being sufficient 

 to crush any minor assailant after being prostrated by 

 means of its trunk. Besides, in using its feet for this 

 purpose, it derives a wonderful facility from the peculiar 

 formation of the knee-joint in the hind leg, which, en- 



1 A writer in the India Sporting there was a large hole in the side, 

 Review for October 1857 says a and the abdomen was ripped open, 

 male elephant was killed by two The latter wound was given pro- 

 others close to his camp: "the bably after it had fallen." — P. 

 head was completely smashed in; 175. 



