94 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
Bengal, is, I am satisfied, untenable. Under the pressure of the Great 
Mutiny of 1858, the Indian Government brought Elephants by sea, 
from Pegu and the adjoining Tenasserim provinces, to Calcutta, but 
none from Ceylon. The occurrence up to that time was so rare 
there, that the debarcation of the animals, slung through the air, 
was figured in the “ London Illustrated News ” of the day as a re¬ 
markable event. Young Elephants are, I believe, never imported 
from Ceylon to Calcutta and “ Choonee” was exported thence as a 
very young animal. Ceylon Elephants are exported to the adjoining 
peninsula; but they are commonly reserved for the priests of the 
pagodas, for the Chiefs of Southern India, and for the commissariat 
demands of the Madras and Bombay Presidencies. I doubt if the 
Ceylon Elephant could endure the winter cold of the North-Western 
Provinces, exposed in the open air. I have been on the back of an 
indigenous Elephant, in the valley of Deyrah, in the North-Western 
Provinces, which is constantly resorted to by herds of the wild ani¬ 
mal, when the thermometer stood before sunrise at 22° Eahr.: and Sir 
Andrew Waugh informs me, that during the measurement of the 
base-line for the Trigonometrical Survey, in Chuch, the temperature 
fell to 15° Eahr., with Elephants in the camp, exposed to the open 
air. 
On a review, therefore, of the whole case, the evidence in every 
aspect, appears to fail in showing that the Elephant of Ceylon and 
Sumatra is of a species distinct from the Continental Indian form. 
Having had opportunities of observing the animal along a range of 
habitat, which rarely fall to the lot of a single naturalist, I have felt 
called upon to express an opinion on the moot question. These em¬ 
braced a residence during many years at Suharunpoor, in lat. 30°, near 
the extreme northern range of the species ; close to jungles where wild 
Elephants abound, and which my duties led me frequently to explore. 
In 1832, I was present at the ‘ Koom,’ or great Beligious Pair, which 
takes place at Hurdwar, on the Ganges, after each cycle of twelve y ear s.f 
the evidence adduced above, of the numerical variability in the living species. Nor 
can I assent to the inference founded upon it, that the “ Mastodons form not a di- 
“ verging, but a parallel series with the Elephants.” The Indian fossil species, 
which have been ranged under the designation of Stecjodon , establish, through their 
molar teeth, a manifest and nearly unbroken passage from the Mastodons into the 
true Elephants. (Vide Quart. Journ. Geol. Society, 1857, Yol. xiii. p. 314. 
* Mr. Blyth, in a late number of the “ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Ben¬ 
gal,” received since the above remarks were made, confirms the statement. By a 
return received from the Military Commissariat Office, at Calcutta, it appears 
that 826 Elephants were imported there, from Moulmein and Rangoon, in the 
years 1857 to 1859. “No Elephants,” (it is added) “were received at Calcutta 
from Ceylon.” A communication from Col. Phayre, mentions that in the seventeen 
months, from Dec. 1857 to April, 1859, no fewer than 1034 Elephants were shipped 
from the same ports to Madras and Bengal. Showing the vast number of Ele¬ 
phants occurring in the forests of the Trans-gangetic Provinces, and the adjoining 
districts of Siam. (Op. cit. 1862, No. ii. p. 174.) 
f ‘ Kumbha Mela.’ Duodecennial, when Jupiter is in Aquarius, and the sun 
entering into Aries. (Vide Raper. Asiat. Research. Yol. xi. p. 456.) 
