but by killing the mother; for she never abandons it. When she is killed, it falls from her, and may be seized.

As they feed only on fruits, pot-herbs, grain, and some insects, their flesh is reckoned not bad eating. It resembles mutton, or the flesh of a hare. One of them is a meal for six persons. They are the most common game, and the most agreeable to the taste of the Amazon Indians; they roast one part, and boil the other: "We lived upon them," says a French writer, "during all the time we remained there, because we could procure no other food; and the hunters supplied us daily with as many as we could eat. I went to see this species of hunting, and was surprised at the sagacity of these animals, not only in distinguishing particularly those who make war upon them, but also in defending themselves, and providing for their own safety when attacked. When we approached, they all assembled together, uttered loud and frightful cries, and threw at us dried branches, which they broke off from the trees. I likewise remarked, that they never abandon one another; that they leap from tree to tree with incredible agility; and fling themselves headlong from branch to branch, without ever falling to the ground; because, before reaching the earth, they always catch hold of a branch, either with their hands or tail; so that if not shot dead at once, they cannot be seized; for, even when mortally wounded, they remain fixed to the trees, where they often die, and fall not off till corrupted. Fifteen or sixteen of them are frequently shot before three or four of them can be obtained. What is singular, as soon as one is wounded, the rest collect about him, and put their fingers into the wound, as if they meant to sound it; and when it discharges much blood, some of them keep the wound shut, whilst others make a mash of leaves, and dexterously close the aperture. This operation I have often observed with much wonder." "After 1 have shot at one," says Dampier, " and broke a leg or an arm, I have often pitied the poor creature, to see it look at and handle the wounded limb, and turn it about from side to side." When the savages shoot them with arrows, they extract the arrow out of their bodies with their own hands, like human creatures.

When these creatures are embarrassed, they assist each other in passing a brook, or getting from one tree to another.

[Margrave. Pantologia.

SECTION III.

Elephant; with a Description of the Elephant Hunt.

Elephas maximus.-LINN.

THIS is the only known species of the genus: it is the largest of quadrupeds, sometimes weighing four thousand five hundred pounds; body cinereous, seldom reddish or white, thinly set with hairs; proboscis flat beneath, tip truncate; eyes small: tusks, which are only in the upper jaw, far extended beyond the mouth, resembling horns, marked with curled fibres, constituting the ivory of the shops, and sometimes weighing a hundred and fifty pounds each; ears large, pendulous, dentate; skin thick, callous, impenetrable by musketballs, and yet sensible of the sting of flies; teats two, near the breast; knees flexible; neck short; hoofs five on each fore-foot, four on each hind foot.

Some writers have made the sukotyro a second species of the elephant, but incorrectly. He has a distinguishing property, that ought to constitute him a distinct genus.

The elephant inhabits the torrid zone, in swampy places, and by the sides of rivers; feeds on the leaves and branches of young trees, particularly plaintains, eating even the wood; devours grain voraciously; is gregarious, docile, long-lived, and sagacious, though the brain is small; hereby confuting the doctrine of those philosophers, who contend that the intellect possessed depends upon the size of the brain compared with the size of the animal; drawing their doctrine from the human form and human brain alone.

The proboscis is long, extensile, contractile; furnished at the end with a hook, serving the purpose of a hand, with which it takes its food and drink; and which being cut off, the animal perishes. He is afraid of mice, lest when he sleeps they should creep into his tracha; urines backwards; copulates like other quadrupeds. The female is gravid a year; the young suck their mother with their lips. Carries houses on his back, his guider sitting upon the neck; moves quickly; swims dexterously; is armed for war by the natives of India; and was formerly armed by the Romans with scythes. The contrivances for taking wild elephants are various: the two most common are decoying them into places of security by means of female elephants properly instructed; and hunting rather than fright

ening them forwards, from one part of the wood to another, till they reach the place of their imprisonment, which is strongly palisadoed all round, with a view of escaping from the noise and torches employed on such occasions. When once they are caught, they are easily tamed, by observing the submission of other elephants.

The Ceylonese elephants are those most highly esteemed in India; and the mode of snaring them is peculiarly entertaining and curious. In Mr. Cordiner's Description of Ceylon, there is a good account of this extraordinary decoy, and we shall present our readers with it in as condensed a form as possible. The hunt alluded to took place near the elephant-snare at Kotaway, only a few miles distant from Tengalle. The governor and his suite attended on this occasion, and the whole of the party employed was not fewer than three thousand persons. The whole of this multitude surrounded the forests in which elephants are discovered to abound, with a chain of fires placed on moveable stands, so as to be brought closer, according as the elephants are driven nearer to the centre. The distance between the fires may at first have been an hundred paces, which is gradually reduced to about ten paces. The more the elephants are confined, the more vigilant the hunters must become, and prepared to repel their efforts to escape, by advancing the fires, and by loud shouting. At the end of two months they thus become enclosed in a circle, of which the wide entrance of the snare forms a part, and are at last brought so near to it, that by the exertions of the surrounding multitude, they can be made close prisoners in a few hours. It is now that all those who are desirous of witnessing the capture resort to the scene of action.

An idea of the enclosure may be formed by drawing, on a piece of paper, the outline of a wide funnel. A little way within the wide end, a palisade runs across, in breadth six hundred feet, containing four open gates, which the elephants enter. A view of two of these is commanded from a bungaloe, erected for spectators on pillars thirty feet from the ground. The enclosure is formed of the strongest trees on the island, from eight to ten inches in diameter, bending inwards, sunk four feet into the ground, and from sixteen to twenty feet high above it. They are placed at the distance of sixteen inches from each other, and crossed by four rows of powerful beams, bound fast to them by pliant canes. To this palisade are added supporters more inclined, several feet asunder,

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