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 marvellous motive powers inherent 



Appendages;" but the conjecture to it ; his conjecture is, that they 



of the author leaves the problem are " a species of safety valve 



scarcely less obscure than before, of the animal ceconomy," — and that 



Struck with the mere supplemental " they owe their development to 



presence of the tusks, the absence the predominance of the senses of 



of all apparent use serving to dis- touch and smell, conjointly with 



tinguish them from the essential the muscular motions of which the 



organs of the creature, Dr. Hol- exercise of these is accompanied." 



land concludes that their produc- " Had there been no proboscis," he 



tion is a process incident, but not thinks, "there would have been no 



ancillary, to other important ends, supplementary appendages, — the 



especially connected with the vital former creates the latter," — Pp. 



functions of the trunk and the 246, 271. 



