Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/203

Rh "When the British captured Ceylon, a memorandum was found, left by Colonel Eobertson, who was in command of the island in 1799, which stated that an Elephant attached to the establishment at Matura had served under the Dutch for upwards of one hundred and forty years—during the entire period of the occupation from the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1656, and found by them in the stables when they took possession of the island. The stories of Elephants living to an immense age in India I put no trust in, because with any favourite Elephants in former days (when the Jemadar had the naming of them) they had special names; and as their vocabulary of names was but limited, they used to give three or four Elephants the same name, as, for instance, 'Pobun Peary No. I., Pobun Peary II., Pobun Peary III.' Pobun means the wind, and an Elephant in the depot possessing swift and easy paces would go by the name of Pobun, and when Pobun I. died Pobun II. became No. I., and so on, and a new one christened No. III. These appeared in the office books, while the casualty rolls were kept merely on fly-sheets, and were after a while disposed of as waste paper, and therefore no check was possible to the true identification of an Elephant; and as no trace could be found except in the office books, which simply showed the same names of Elephants running on continuously year after year, it appeared as if they (the Elephants) reached an extraordinary age. But all this has now been altered, and better books kept. I consider an Elephant to be at its prime about thirty-five or forty, and capable of working up to seventy or eighty years of age. An Elephant's life may extend rather longer than a human being's, but not by much; but I do not believe in animals (except a very occasional one) living up to 150 years. There are mahouts whose fathers, grandfathers, and great-great-great-grandfathers were all mahouts, and my opinion is founded on theirs, supplemented by my own observations of the past thirty years."

There are three well-known varieties of Rhinoceros found in India, and perhaps there are two other varieties. R. indicus is the largest, the dimensions of one I killed being—extreme length