The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-29 00:00:00

,LITE.B.A2'URE.

Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon, wills
Narratives and Anecdotes. With engravings
from original drawings. By Sir Emerson
Tennent,K.C.S., LL.D., &c., author of " Ceylon."
Longman.
It is now two years since Sir J. Ternent pub-
lished his work on Ceylon, which enjoyed so great
a success and attained such deserved popularity.
This volume is the reproduction of the geological
section of that work, with considerable- alterations
and extensive additions. The suggestion was made
to the author to present the public with those in-
teresting details in a more complete form than was
possible in the large edition, and the result has
been eminently satisfactory. It is not often we meet
with so instructive a work on this topic, and the
skill with which its component parts have been ar-
ranged reflects the highest credit on the author. The
variety met with in these pages is most surprising,
and there arc few readers who will not find their
knowledge considerably extended when they peruse
these accounts. The author explains his reason for
giving so much space to the elephant, on the score
that few works contain illustrations of its instincts
and functions when wild in its native woods. " They
chiefly refer to its habits when in captivity, and as
the opportunities for observing them in a natural
state abound in Ceylon, the author took every op-
portunity of collecting facts and making personal
observations regarding its peculiarities. Some of its
habits are most strange, and excite our wonder and
astonishment. For instance, we note the follow-
ing :
"If by any accident an elephant becomes hopelessly
separated from his own herd, he is not permitted to attach
himself to any other. He may browse in the vicinity, or
frequent the same place to drink and to bathe ; but the in-
tercourse is only on a distant and conventional footing, and
no familiarity or intimate association is under any circum-
stances permitted. To such a height is this exclusiveness
carried, that even amidst the terror and stupefaction of an
elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own
party in the melee and confusion, has been driven into the
enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed
in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off
by heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted
to insinuate himself within the circle which they had
formed for common security. There can be no reasonable
doubt that this jealous and exclusive policy not only coa-
t ibutes to produce, but mainly serves to perpetuate, the
class of solitary ele2hants which are known by the term
goondahs, in India, and which from their vicious propen-
sities and predatory habits are called flora, or Rogues, in
Ceylon.
"It is believed by the Singhalese that these are either in-
dividuals who by accident have lost their former associates
and become morose and savage from rage and solitude; or
else that being naturally vicious, they have become daring
from the yielding habits of their milder companions, and
eventually separated themselves from the rest of the herd
which had refused to associate with them. Another con-
jecture is, that being almost universally males, the death or
capture of particuler females may have detached them from
their former companions in search of fresh alliances. It is
also believed that a tame elephant escaping from captivity,
unable to rejoin its former herd, and excluded from any
other, becomes a rogue' from necessity. In Ceylon it is
generally believed that the ' rogues' are all males (but of
this I am not certain), and so sullen is their disposition that
although two may be in the same vicinity, there is no known
instance of their associating, or of a rogue' been seen in
company with another elephant."
Concerning the age of the elephant there are par-
ticulars given which will interest the naturalist,
and convey some notion of the longevity of this
strange creature :
" The duration of life in the elephant has been from the
remotest times a matter of uncertainty and speculation.
Aristotle says it was reputed to live from two to three hun-
dred years, and modern zoologists have assigned to it an
age very little less ; Cuvier allots 200, and De Blainvillo
120. The only attempt which I know of to establish a
period historically or physiologically is that of Fleurens,
who has advanced an ingenious theory on the subject in his
treatise De la Longevit6 Humaine.' He assumes the sum
total of life in all animals to be equivalent to five times the
number of years requisite to perfect their growth and de-
velopment ; and ho adopts as evidence of the period at
which growth ceases, the final consolidation of the bones
with their epiphyses; which in the young consist of carti-
lages ; but in the adult become uniformly osseous and solid.
So long as the epipyses are distinct from the bones, the
growth of the animal is proceeding, but it ceases as soon as
the consolidation is complete. In man, according to Flea-
rens, this consummation tales place at 20 years of age, in
the horse at 5, in the dog at 2 ; so that conformably to this
theory the respective normal age for each would be 100
years for man, 25 for the horse, and 10 for a dog. As a
datum for his conclusion Fleurens cites the instance of one
young elephant in which at 26 years old, the epipyses were
still distinct ; whereas in another, which died at 31, they
were firm and adherent. Hence he draws the inference
that the period of completed solidification is 30 years, and
consequently that the normal age of the elephant is 150 I
"Amongst the Singhalese the ancient fable of the ele-
phant attaining to the age of 200 or 330 years still prevails ;
but the Europeans, and those in immediate charge of tame
ones, entertain the opinion that the duration of life for about
70 years is common both to the man and the elephant ; and
that before the arrival of the latter period, symptoms of de-
bility and decay ordinari:y begin to manifest themselves.
Still, instances are not wanting in Ceylon of trained decoys
that have lived for more than double the reputed period in
actual servitude. One employed by Mr. Cripps in the
Seven Korles was represented by the Corrowe people to
have served the King of Kandy in the same capacity 60
years before ; and amongst the papers left by Col. Robert-
son (son to the historian of Charles V.). who held a com-
mand in Ceylon in 1709, shortly after the capture of the
island by the British, I have found a memorandum show-
ing that a decoy was then attached to the elephant estab-
lishment at Mature, which the records proved to have served
under the Dutch during the entire period of their occupa-
tion (exten iing to upwards- of 140 years); and it was said
to have been found in the stables by the Dutch on the ex-
pulsion of the Portuguese in 1656."
There are some curious details concerning the
mystery attending dead elephants. The author
has been assured by frequenters of the forest that
they had never found the remains of an elephant
that had died a natural death. It said the natives
declare that the survivors of the herd bury such of
their companions as die a natural death. Also,
it is said that—
" The Singhalese have a further superstition in relation
to the close of the life of the elephant; they believe that,
on feeling the approach of dissolution, he repairs to a soli-
tary valley, and there resigns himself to death. A native
who accompanied Mr. Cripps, when hunting, in the forests
of Anajapoora, intimated to him that he was then in the
immediate vicinity of the spot ' to which the elephants come
to die,' but that it was so mysteriously concealed that
although every ono behoved in its existence, no one had
ever succeeded in penetrating to it. At the corral which I
have described at Bornegalle, in 1847, Dehigame, ono of the
Kandyan chiefs, assured me it was the universal belief of
his countrymen that elephants, when about to die, resorted
to a valley in Saffragan, among the mountains to the east
of Adam's Peak, which was reached by a narrow pass with
walls of rock on either side, and that there, by the side of a
lake of clear water, they took their last repose. It was not
without interest that I afterwards recognised this tradition
in the story of Sinbad of the Sea,' who, in his seventh
voyage, after conveying the presents of Haroun al Raschid
to the King of Serendib, is wrecked on his return from
Ceylon, and sold as a slave, to a master who employs him
in shooting elephants for the sake of their ivory ; till one
day the tree on which he was stationed, being uprooted by
one of the held, he fell senseless to the ground, and the
great elephant approaching, wound his trunk around him,
and carried him away, ceasing not to proceed until he had
taken him to a place whore, his terror having subsided,
he found himself amongst the bones of elephants,
and Ire knew that this was their burial place.
It is curious to find this legend of Ceylon in what has not
inaptly been described as the Arabian Odyssey" of ' Sind-
bad,' the original of which evidently embodies the romantic
recitals of the sailors returning from the navigation of the
Indian seas in the middle ages, which were current amongst
the Mussulmans, and are reproduced in various forms
throughout the tales of the Arabian Nights.' "
The description of the various animals is very en-
tertaining. It is observed that, to a stranger in
thetropics, among the most attractive creatures in
the forests are the troops of monkeys that career in
ceaseless chase among the loftiest trees. We find
the subjoined account of the white monkey :
" A white monkey, taken between Ambepusse and Ker-
negalle, where they are said to bo numerous, was brought
to me to Colombo. Except in colour, it had all the charac-
teristics of Presbytes cephalopterus. So striking was its
whiteness that it might have been conjectured to be an
albino, but for the circumstance that its eyes and face were
black. I have heard that white monkeys have been seen
near the Ridi-gallo Wihara in Seven Korles and also at
Tangalle ; but I never saw another specimen. The natives
say they are not uncommon, and Knox that they are' milk-
white both in body and face ; but of this sort there is not
such plenty.' The Rev. R. Spence Hardy mentions, in his
learned work on ' Eastern Monachism,' that on the occa-
sion of his visit to the great temple of Dambool, lie
encountered a troop of white monkeys on the rock in
which it is situated—which were, doubtless, a variety
of the Wanderoo. Pliny was aware of the fact that white
monkeys aro occasionally found in India.
" When observed in their native wilds, a party of 20 or
30 of these creatures is generally busily engaged in the
search for berries and buds. They are seldom to be seen on
the ground, except when they may have descended to re-
cover seeds or fruit which have fallen at the foot of their
favourite trees. When disturbed, their leaps are prodigionuesii
but, generally speaking, their progressti:=hr2t
gso ratheir
by leaping as by swinging fromanbr
when
anddawnhen bafiled by distance,
powerful arms alternatelyi
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eynstonmas
acquired by
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descentbouglis
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lh
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graspofth a h
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carries
o r e
them upwards a
distant ono, and thus continuo their headlong flight. In
these perilous achievments, wonder is excited less by the
agility of these little creatures, frequently encumbered as
they are by their young, which cling to them in their
career, than by the quickness of their eye and the unerring
accuracy with which they seem almost to calculate the angle
at which a descent will enable them to cover a given dis-
tance, and the recoil to attein a higher altitude."
There are 320 species of birds in the island. Of
these it is said that In the glory of their plumage
the birds of the interior are surpassed by those of
South America and Northern India, and the melody
of their song bears no comparison with the war-
blers of Europe ; but the want of brilliancy is com-
pensated by their singular grace of form, and the
absence of prolonged and modulated harmony by
the rich and melodious tones of their clear and
musical calls." We meet with this account of a
bird often mentioned in song and story : "Pre-
eminent in size and beauty are the tall flamingoes,
with rose-coloured plumage, that line the beach
in long piles. The Singhalese have been led,
from their colour and. their military order,
to designate them the " English Soldier Birds.
Nothing can be more startling than the sudden
flight of these splendid creatures when la
their strong wings beating the
saeiarrlV
tVile over the
distant thunder, and as they soundad, like