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. 



