Elephants are captured in Siain by loosing female elephants in the forests at certain seasons, when the wild males return with them, and are captured. , In Ceylon, the Peninsula of India, Cachar, and Assani, the capture of herds is effected by driving them into a kraal or kheddah. In Travancore, the state and private persons have about a thousand pits as elephant traps. The pits are 8 feet square, rounded off towards the bottom, from which, with the aid of tamed elephants, the anitnal is raised and tamed. The tamed elephant is guided by the ankus (Ankasa, SANSIC. ; Arpe, GREEK ; Cuspis, LATIN ; 11011(100, SINGH.), ft goad and guiding rod, in shape resembling a small boat hook. It is figured in the medals of Caracalla of the identical form in use at the present day in India.
In August 1880, Mr. Sanderson delivered before the Viceroy at Simla, a lecture on the elephant. Out of many hundreds which Mr. Sanderson had measured in the south of India and Bengal, he had only found one male of 9 feet 10 inches vertical height at the shoulder, though the raja of Nahun had a tusker which ineasum 10 feet 51 inches. Few female elephants attain 8 feet at the shoulder, A dead elephant, one that has died a natural death, is so rarely if ever seen, RS te have given rise to the belief atnong some wild tribes, that wild elephants never die ; whilst othens believe that there is a place unseen by human eye, to which they retire to end their days. Mr. Sanderson had never seen the remains of au elephant that had died a natural death, and had never. met any one among the jungle tribes or professional hunters who had. The Singhalese have a super stition that on feeling the approach of dissolution, the elephant retires to a solitary valley, and there resigns himself to death. There is a similar belief in India.
Elephants are expert swimmers, though they cannot jump a trench 8 feet wide. Large numbers of them are annually sent across the tideway of the Ganges between Dacca and Barrackpur, and are sometimes six consecutive hours without touching the bottom. Mr. Sanderson had seen an elephant swim a river 300 yards wide with his hind legs tied together. They are sometimes drowned.
At that lecture Mr. Sanderson gave the opinion that there is no diminution in the numbers now obtainable in Bengal ; and that in Southern India elephants are annually appearing in places where they had never been heard of before. I3ut the diminution of the fore,sts, the increase of popula tion, the destruction of the weaker by the stronger males, the captures of such great number, the deaths during the capture, and the cessation of breeding arnongst the captives, cannot but greatly diminish the numbers of the free elephants. Out
of the 53 driven into the kheddah in Mysore on the 1st July 1874, no fewer than —? died before they could be tamed.
During the three years previous to Mr. Sander son's lecture, 503 elephants had been captured by the Dacca kheddah establishment in a tract of country 40 miles long by 20 broad, in the Garo Hills, whilst not less than 1000 were met during his hunting, operations. Baber states that in his time elephants abounded about Calpi, and in Karrah and Manikpur ; and Akbar fell in with a herd near Colhras, in the east of Malwa.
Under Mr. Sanderson's arrangements, when an elephant chases the takers, they betake them selves to the shelter of tree trunks, bamboo clutnps, or long grass, and it is astonishing to see how they frequently escape uninjured. He had known many cases of men standing against a tree, or hiding in tufts of long grass, within a couple of yards of elephants that were pausing in indecision, without being discovered, though the elephants were evidently aware of their close proximity, as they kicked up the ground in an,ger, and then made off. In such cases the slightest movement would have led to the hunters being instantly trampled to death. Men are frequently killed, but they are almost always young hands -who are learning. He saw one such make a narrow escape. He ran from an elephant and climbed a tree ; the elephant butted the trunk, and the man fell down, but his pursuer was so astonished at the sight, that she fled at once. Sometimes drives are conducted by torchlight, and these seldom fail, owing to the elephant's fear. of fire. The scenes on these occasions are exciting beyond description.
The African elephant is usually less in size than the Asiatic species. The head is rounded, the front is convex instead of concave, the ears are nau.ch larger, and the general physiognomy is quite different from that of the lyndian elephant. Ihe tusks of the adult males of this species are very large, and of great value. They are imported into England in g,reat quantities from different parts of the Africaricontinent, in the unexplored interior of which this huge animal is still met with in great abundance.