120 
MAMMALIA. 
On coming into the world, the young Pachyderm is about a metre 
high. It enjoys the use of all its organs, and is strong enough to 
follow its parents. When it wants to suck, it turns its trunk oyer 
backwards, and takes the milk from its mother’s teat with its 
mouth, and not with its trunk, as certain authors haye affirmed. 
The suckling period lasts for about two years. 
The Elephant is endowed with yery great intelligence, of which 
we will giye some proofs. It understands justice — that is to say, 
it renders good for good and eyil for evil. 
The mahout (groom and driver) of an Elephant broke, out of 
spite, one day, a cocoa-nut on the head of his beast. Next day, the 
Elephant, passing along a street, perceived some cocoa-nuts exposed 
for sale in front of a shop. He took one in his trunk, and gave 
his driver such a severe blow with it on his forehead that he fell 
dead on the spot. 
A young man who had amused himself by offering a piece of 
sugar a great many times to an Elephant, and by as often with- 
drawing it, at last gave it to another Elephant. Offended at this 
teazing, the former seized the young man with its trunk, inflicted 
some severe bruises on his face, and tore his clothes to pieces. 
The keepers were obliged to run to the assistance of this imprudent 
fellow, and make the furious animal relax his hold of him. 
An Elephant was in the habit of elongating his trunk and put- 
ting it in at the windows of the houses of Acheen (in the north of 
Sumatra), as if to ask for fruits or roots, for the inhabitants used 
to take a pleasure in giving them to it. One morning, it pre- 
sented the extremity of its trunk at the window of a tailor, who, 
instead of giving the Elephant what it wanted, pricked its trunk 
with his needle. The animal appeared to bear this insult with 
patience. It went quietly on down to the river, whither the 
mahout, or driver, led it each morning to wash. On this occasion 
it stirred up the mud with one of its front feet, and drew into its 
trunk a great quantity of this dirty water. When it was returning 
home through the street in which the tailor’s shop was situated, it 
advanced towards the window, and spouted the water in on him 
with such prodigious force that the tailor and his workmen were 
pitched off their shop-board and struck with terror. 
Buffon relates the following trait : — 
“ A painter wished to make a drawing of the Elephant of the 
