ELEPHANT — GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 
401 
obliged to congregate in large numbers where water is 
to be obtained. Being stationed near a water supply, and 
knowing that a large herd of elephants were in the neigh- 
bourhood, Major Skinner resolved to watch their pro- 
ceedings. On a moonlight night, therefore, he 
climbed a tree about four hundred yards from the water, and 
waited patiently for two hours before he heard or saw anything 
of the elephants. At length he saw a huge beast issue from 
the wood, and advance cautiously across the open ground to 
within a hundred yards of the tank, where he stood perfectly 
motionless ; and the rest of the herd, meanwhile, were so quiet 
that not the least sound was to be heard from them. Gradu- 
ally, at three successive advances, halting some minutes after 
each, he moved up to the water’s edge, in which, however, he did 
not think proper to quench his thirst, but remained for several 
minutes listening in perfect stillness. He then returned cau- 
tiously and slowly to the point at which he had issued from 
the wood, front whence he came back with five other elephants, 
with which he proceeded, somewhat less slowly than before, to 
within a few yards of the tank, where he posted them as 
patrols. He then re-entered the wood and collected the whole 
herd, which must have amounted to between eighty and a 
hundred, and led them across the open ground with the most 
extraordinary composure and quiet till they came up to the five 
sentinels, when he left them for a moment, and again made a 
reconnaissance at the edge of the tank. At last, being appa- 
rently satisfied that all was safe, he turned bach, and obviously 
gave the order to advance * ‘ for in a moment/ says Major 
Skinner, ‘ the whole herd rushed to the water with a degree of 
unreserved confidence so opposite to the caution and timidity 
which had marked their previous movements, that nothing will 
ever persuade me that there was not rational and preconcerted 
co-operation throughout the whole party, and a degree of 
responsible authority exercised by the patriarch-leader/ 1 
Mr. H. L. Jenkins writes to me : — 
What I particularly wish to observe is that there are good 
reasons for supposing that elephants possess abstract ideas ; for 
instance, I think it is impossible to doubt that they acquire 
through their own experience notions of hardness and weight, 
and the grounds on which I am led to think this are as follows. 
1 See his letter to Sir E. Tennent in Nat. Hist, of Ceylon> pp 
118 - 20 . 
