Chap. III.] THE ELEPHANT. 113 



of their own." 1 Their affection in this particular is 

 undoubted, but I question whether it exceeds that of 

 other animals ; and the trait thus adduced of their 

 indiscriminate kindness to all the young of the herd, 

 — of which I have myself been an eye-witness, — so far 

 from being an evidence of the strength of parental 

 attachment individually, is, perhaps, somewhat incon- 

 sistent with the existence of such a passion to any 

 extraordinary degree. 2 In fact, some individuals, who 

 have had extensive facilities for observation, doubt 

 whether the fondness of the female elephants for their 

 offspring is so great as that of many other animals ; as 



1 A correspondent of Buffon, M. 

 Marcellus Bles, Seigneur de 

 Moergestal, who resided eleven 

 years in Ceylon in the time of the 

 Dutch, says in one of his commu- 

 nications, that in herds of forty or 

 fifty, enclosed in a single corral, 

 there were frequently very young 

 calves ; and that "on ne pouvoit 

 pas reconnaitre quelles etoient les 

 meres de chacun de ces petits ele- 

 phans, car tous ces jeunes animaux 

 paroissent faire manse commune ; 

 ils tetent indistinctement celles des 

 femelles de toute la troupe qui ont 

 du lait, soit qu'elles aient elles- 

 memes un petit en propre, soit 

 qu' elles n' en aient point. " — Buffon, 

 Suppl. a V Hist, des Anim., vol. vi. 

 p. 25. 



2 White, in his Natural History 

 of Selborne, philosophising on the 

 fact which had fallen under his own 

 notice of this indiscriminate suck- 

 ling of the young of one animal 

 by the parent of another, is dis- 

 posed to ascribe it to a selfish feel- 

 ing ; the pleasure and relief of 

 having its distended teats drawn 

 by this intervention. He notices 



the circumstance of a leveret having 

 been thus nursed by a cat, whose 

 kittens had been recently drowned : 

 and observes, that "this strange 

 affection was probably occasioned 

 by that desiderium, those tender 

 maternal feelings, which the loss of 

 her kittens had awakened in her 

 breast ; and by the complacency 

 and ease she derived to herself 

 from procuring her teats to be 

 drawn, which were too much dis- 

 tended with milk ; till from habit 

 she became as much delighted with 

 this foundling as if it had been 

 her real offspring. This incident 

 is no bad solution of that strange 

 circumstance which grave historians, 

 as well as the poets, assert of ex- 

 posed children being sometimes 

 nurtured by female wild beasts 

 that probably had lost their young. 

 For it is not one whit more mar- 

 vellous that Eomulus and Eemus 

 in their infant state should be 

 nursed by a she wolf than that a 

 poor little suckling leveret should 

 be fostered and cherished by a 

 bloody Grimalkin." — White's Sel- 

 borne, lett. xx. 



