Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/381

Rh Wild Dog, Sambur, Spotted Deer, Barking Deer or Muntjac, Indian Antelope (Antilope bezoartica), Indian Gazelle or Ravine Deer (Gazella Bennettii), Wild Hog, Crocodile, Jackal, Fox, Jungle Cat (Fells chatis), Leopard Cat (F. bengalensis), Otter, Porcupine, Mouse Deer (Memimna indica), and Hare.

Of these the Cheetah is said to be "exceedingly rare," and neither the Antelope nor the Gazelle is considered numerous, but the rest are apparently common enough.

Of most of these Mr. Sanderson has a good deal to say, and in regard to the more dangerous animals relates some very stirring adventures. The elephant naturally receives the largest share of his attention, and the chapters devoted to this animal are full of useful statistics and information brought down to the present year.

Contrary to what is occurring in Africa, where elephants are getting every day scarcer from continued persecution, the Indian wild elephant is protected by Government, and enjoys perfect immunity throughout the Western Ghats and the vast jungles which extend for hundreds of miles along the foot of the Himalayas into Burmah and Siam.

The mode of catching wild herds in kheddahs, as practised by the author to supply the Government of India with beasts of burden, is fully described, and the description is rendered the more attractive and instructive by the maps, plans, and nicely- executed photo-tints which accompany.

The largest elephant measured by Mr. Sanderson stood nine nine feet ten inches at the shoulder, and the biggest he ever killed, a dangerous rogue-elephant in the Kakankote jungle, was nine feet seven inches at the shoulder, and measured twenty-six feet two inches and a half from tip of trunk to tip of tail. The tusks alone weighed seventy-four pounds and a half.

The price of elephants has risen enormously. In 1835 it was £45 per head ; tuskers of any pretensions are now worth from £800 to £1500 a-piece, and nothing is to be had, as a rule, under £150. The chief mart in India for the sale and purchase of elephants is at Sonepoor on the Ganges, where a great fair is annually held for the purpose.

It would scarcely be supposed that so unwieldy a creature as an elephant could swim well, and yet it does so probably better than any other terrestrial mammal. In November, 1875, Mr. Sanderson made seventy-nine elephants swim across the Ganges and several