II. 196.]

CHAP. III.

THE ELEPHANT.

* * * * *

_Habits when Wild_.

Although found generally in warm and sunny climates, it is a mistake to
suppose that the elephant is partial either to heat or to light. In
Ceylon, the mountain tops, and not the sultry valleys, are its favourite
resort. In Oovah, where the elevated plains are often crisp with the
morning frost, and on Pedura-talla-galla, at the height of upwards of
eight thousand feet, they are found in herds, whilst the hunter may
search for them without success in the hot jungles of the low country.
No altitude, in fact, seems too lofty or too chill for the elephant,
provided it affords the luxury of water in abundance; and, contrary to
the general opinion that the elephant delights in sunshine, it seems at
all times impatient of glare, and spends the day in the thickest depth
of the forests, devoting the night to excursions, and to the luxury of
the bath, in which it also indulges occasionally by day. This partiality
for shade is doubtless ascribable to the animal's love of coolness and
solitude; but it is not altogether unconnected with the position of the
eye, and the circumscribed use which its peculiar mode of life permits
it to make of the faculty of sight.

All the elephant hunters and natives to whom I have spoken on the
subject, concur in opinion that its range of vision is circumscribed,
and that it relies more on its ear and sense of smell than on its sight,
which is liable to be obstructed by dense foliage; besides which, from
the formation of its short neck, the elephant is incapable of directing
the range of the eye much above the level of the head.[1]

[Footnote 1: After writing the above, I was permitted by the late Dr.
HARRISON, of Dublin, to see some accurate drawings of the brain of an
elephant, which he had the opportunity of dissecting in 1847; and on
looking to that of the base, I have found a remarkable verification of
the information which I collected in Ceylon.

The small figure A is the ganglion of the fifth nerve, showing the small
motor and large sensitive portion.

[Illustration]

The _olfactory lobes_, from which the olfactory nerves proceed, are
large, whilst the _optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly
small_ for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the
prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with
its exquisite sensibility, as well