Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/101



'''Mammalia. Ungulata.''' fauna of Burma is singularly rich and varied. In nearly every district wander herds of elephants, from thirty to fifty, sometimes as many as a hundred, together, very destructive to crops, eating much and trampling down more. Except in the Shan States, they are strictly preserved and, save in defence of human beings or in protection of property, may not be shot without a license. The capture of wild elephants with the aid of tame elephants as decoys was practised by Burmans probably from very ancient times, and certainly up to the extinction of the Burmese monarchy in 1885. The vivid account of kheddah operations at Pegu in 1569 A.D. by the Venetian traveller, Cæsar Frederick, is an accurate description of similar operations at Amarapura in the time of the last king, more than three hundred years later. For some short time after the annexation of Upper Burma, the elephant-catching establishment was maintained. Later the somewhat primitive native method was abandoned and the capture of elephants on a large scale was undertaken by skilled and trained officers. Some years ago the Government Kheddah Department was abolished and, at present, the supply of elephants is left to private enterprise. The Burmese elephant is a useful beast, docile, and believed, perhaps erroneously, to be sagacious. He is not commonly used for riding and not at all on ceremonial occasions. As a baggage animal and for dragging timber