Chap. III.] 



THE ELEPHANT. 



121 



ened deer, each of the smaller calves being apparently 

 shouldered and carried along between two of the older 

 ones." 1 



In drinking, the elephant, like the camel, although 

 preferring water pure, shows no decided aversion to it 

 when discoloured with mud 2 ; and the eagerness with 

 which he precipitates himself into the tanks and streams 

 attests his exquisite enjoyment of the fresh coolness, 

 which to him is the chief attraction. In crossing deep 

 rivers, although his rotundity and buoyancy enable him 

 to swim with a less immersion than other quadrupeds, 

 he generally prefers to sink till no part of his huge body 

 is visible except the tip of his trunk, through which he 

 breathes, moving beneath the surface, and only now and 

 then raising his head to look that he is keeping the 

 proper direction. 3 In the dry season the scanty streams 

 which, during the rains, are sufficient to convert the 

 rivers of the low country into torrents, often entirely 

 disappear, leaving only broad expanses of dry sand, 

 which they have swept down with them from the hills. 

 In this the elephants contrive to sink wells for their 

 own use by scooping out the sand to the depth of four 

 or five feet, and leaving a hollow for the percolation of 

 the spring. But as the weight of the elephant would 

 force in the side if left perpendicular, one approach is 

 always formed with such a gradient that he can reach 



1 Letter from Major Skinner. 3 A tame elephant, when taken 



2 This peculiarity was known in by his keepers to be bathed, and 

 the middle ages, and Phile, writing to have his skin washed and rubbed, 

 in the fourteenth century, says, that lies down on his side, pressing his 

 such is his preference for muddy head to the bottom under water, 

 water that the elephant stirs it be- with only the top of his trunk 

 fore he drinks. protruded, to breathe. 



" f/ Y5a>o 8k irivei avyx v ^ v T P^ V ttvirlvot 

 Tb yap Sieve's aKpifi&s 8ta7rTuei." 

 — Phile de Eleph., i. 144. 



