development of the proboscis and the
predominance of the senses of touch and smell."
It is observed that the tusked elephant is able to
rip open the stems of the jaggery palms and young
palmyras to extract the mealy core, and can split
with them the juicy shaft of the plantain, which
the tuskless elephant crushes under its foot,
thereby soiling it and losing a part of its juice.

In the service of man elephants learn a new
use for these appendages, in moving stones and
piling timber. Once, when riding in the thick
jungle near Kandy, Sir Emerson found his horse
to be excited by a repeated "Urmph, urmph,"
uttered in a hoarse, dissatisfied tone that seemed
to be approaching.  A turn in the narrow forest
path showed that the grumbler was a tame
elephant, entirely alone, who was doing messenger's
work by the conveyance of a heavy beam of
timber which he balanced on his tusks. The
pathway being too narrow for the length of the
beam, the elephant was bending his head on one
side to permit it to pass endways, and over this
annoyance he was grumbling to himself.  Being
met by a horseman who was halting in the road,
he threw his log down, and politely backed into
the brushwood, till he left plenty of room for
the traveller to pass him. The horse trembled
and hesitated. The elephant backed further in
among the trees, and repeated his cry of "urmph"
in a tone evidently meant to be reassuring and
encouraging.  At last the horse timidly passed, and
as soon as he had gone by, the elephant of business
took up again his heavy burden, trimmed it and
balanced it upon his tusks, twisted his head
again, and journeyed on, comforting himself as
before with hoarse ejaculations of disgust.

It is an old error, extending over all the
years between the days of Ælian and those of
Sir William Jardine, that the elephant sheds his
tusks.  The truth is, that he sheds only the milk
tusk when very young.

Much has been said of the elephant's dislike
or dread of other animals, especially the pig.
But in his own forests he is fearless, because
harmless and unharmed.  "I have seen," says
Sir Emerson Tennant, "groups of deer and wild
buffaloes reclining in the sandy bed of a river
in the dry season, and elephants plucking the
branches close beside them. They show no
impatience in the company of the elk, the bear
and the wild hog; and on the other hand, I
have never discovered an instance in which these
animals have evinced any apprehension of them.
The elephant's natural timidity is such that he
becomes alarmed on the appearance in the jungle
of any animal with which he is not familiar.
He is said to be afraid of the horse, but from my
own experience I should say it is the horse that
is alarmed at the aspect of the elephant; in the
same way, from some unaccountable impulse, the
horse has an antipathy to the camel, and evinces
extreme impatience both of the sight and smell
of that animal.  When enraged, an elephant will
not hesitate to charge a rider on horseback; but
it is against the man, not against the horse, that
his fury is directed; and no instance has been
known of his wantonly assailing a horse."

A horse that had run away from its groom
was found quietly feeding with a herd of
elephants.  Pigs constantly are seen feeding in
peace about the stables of tame elephants. The
dog and horse are no doubt associated by the
elephant with man, his pursuer, and the barking
of a dog will be sufficient to put a whole herd
to flight.  It has been suggested also that a
dog's disposition to snap at the elephant's feet
increases his dread of him.  The elephant is very
careful of his foot, more careful, indeed, of that
than of his head.

Beyond the difference in the supply of tush
there are many less apparent, and some striking
differences between the elephants of Africa and
of Ceylon. The Ceylon elephants have smaller
ears, higher and hollower foreheads, and the
grinding ridges of the teeth transverse instead
of lozenge shaped. The Indian elephant is said
to have four nails on the hind foot, and the
African three; but it is part of the perfection
of a high-bred elephant in Ceylon that there
should be five nails on each foot, all smooth,
polished, and round.  A native elephant book,
the Hastisilpe, details all the points of a high-
caste animal, and adds, "an elephant with these
perfections will impart glory and magnificence
to the king; but he cannot be discovered among
thousands, yea, there shall never be found an
elephant clothed at once with all the excellences
herein described."  Eyes restless like those of
a crow, small wrinkled face and hollow forehead,
black tongue, thin neck, freckled skin,
yellow nails, and a short tail without a tuft, are
signs of an elephant deficient in good breeding.
The domestic elephant is, actually not
metaphysically, a polished animal.  He is rubbed with a
soft stone, a lump of burnt clay, or the coarse
husk of a coco-nut, oiled now and then, and, as
a consequence, loses the hairs from his skin while
he acquires a blacker and more lustrous colour.

But we speak of the elephant at home, with
his light brown coat, covered by himself with
mud and dust, as a protection from the flies and
heat. Though living in warm climates he
avoids the exposed ground, and prefers
mountain-tops—if only they yield him water enough
—to sultry valleys.  In his woods he avoids all
glare of the sun, and spends the day under the
thickest shade. At night he roams abroad,
delighted by the coolness and the solitude, for
he is, among beasts, one that most loves
tranquillity.  In water he delights, and night is his
especial bathing time. His range of sight does
not extend far above the level of his head, and
he relies always less upon his eye than upon his
senses of smell and of hearing.  The nerves of
the eye are found to be in his brain comparatively
small, while those which supply the apparatus of
the ear and the olfactory lobes are large. The
elephant's small range of vision makes his
caution more excessive.  A hunter, under the
feet of a wounded elephant, was saved by a few
tendrils of a climbing plant that caught the
forehead of the animal.  Surprised by the touch,
he turned and fled. The acuteness of the power
of smell enables elephants, when in the forest,