Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/201

Rh from a Hare or small Deer; and a Pea-fowl or Partridge getting up with a whirr under their trunks would set them quaking with fear.

Although in the wild state Elephants feed not far from Rhinoceroses, and there is no antagonism between them, yet when caught and trained, the very noise made by a Rhinoceros will send them to the rightabout.

Tame Elephants are very subject to epidemics. It is to them what the rinderpest is to cattle,—they die off like rotten Sheep. The only hope of saving the stud is to scatter the animals as far apart as possible, and to let them loose to feed on aquatic plants, which grow in most of the large bheels of India. Elephants, like other animals, must die; yet during thirty years' wanderings in India, and of over three in Africa, I never came across the remains of an Elephant that had joined the majority through natural causes. What then becomes of their ponderous skeletons? Some say that the bones are consumed in the periodical fires; but what becomes of the massive skulls and tusks? I have seen every other wild animal of India dead, or rather have come across their remains; but though I had to wander over jungles in Burma and Assam for over twenty-one years, which were swarming with these pachyderms, I never came across the remains of a single one. Can the tales we read of in the 'Arabian Nights' be true, that when an Elephant feels his last hours or days near at hand he retires to their Golgotha, and there dies? Even if that were the case, how is it no such treasure trove has ever been found? I never met anybody—European or native—who had ever seen the remains of a dead Elephant unless it had previously been killed by human agency.

Elephants utter peculiar sounds to denote peculiar meanings. A whistling noise produced by the trunk indicates satisfaction; when they trumpet or utter a hoarse sharp scream, it is a sign of rage; a noise made by the mouth like "pr-rut-pr-rut" is a sign of alarm; so is the striking of the trunk on the ground accompanied by a pitiful cry; whilst a noise like "urmp-urmp" denotes impatience or dissatisfaction.

Elephants are caught in Keddahs, in pitfalls, and noosed off other Elephants specially trained for that purpose.

They snore a good deal when asleep, and I have seen them