Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1925-01-25
BY LIEUT.. COL. J. c. FAUNTHORPE.
c. IL. Z. A. ID. G.

- LEPHANTS still survive in sew
= eral parts of India in large
numbers. They are protected
L. by strict laws, and only those
which are proclaimed as rogues
may be shot, except under exceptional
circumstances, as on the expedition
conducted by Arthur S. Vernay and
myself last year for the collection of
Indian specimens for the American
Museum of Natural History.
The government of Madras gave us
special permission TO shoot one tusker
and one female elephant for the Amer
lean collection. In the country we
visited, the BnligiriranEan Hills,
which lie partly in the Madras presi-
dency and partly in Mysore State,
eleph ants are numerous.
Nor are rogue elephants extinct in
that part of the country. Ralph Nor
TiS. a coffee planter, who lives there
and who accompanied us on our eX-
petition, had been out on the hillside
after bison one day and was coming
home on foot. AS he approached a
strip of heavy forest in the valley. a
tusker charged at him with a scream.
Fortunately, he had a heavy rife in
his hand, and shot the elephant in the
brain, dropping ii a his feet.
This spot was within two or three
miles of the place where We shot a
very fine tusker for the American Mu
scum of Natural History. This elephant
fell dead, shot in the brain, before he
saw us, but had he seen us it is quite
possible We might have had trouble.
Farther up in the hills there was
during our stay well known ele-
plant which had only one tusk. He
lived alone in a shola, or strip of for
est in a valley on the hillside, and
according TO the Sholagas (the jungle
tribe of the locality) would attack
any man. or, in fact, any animal
which approached his home. There
We're but few human beings in the
neighborhood. and those that were
there gave this elephants home a
wide berth, but ne was known to have
killed several cattle grazing on the
htllsides which had strayed too near
to his abode.
K :: :;
IN northern India, in the low hills OF
the Himalayan range, near where
the Ganges River energies from the
hills into the plain. the local forest
officer was out on foot doing some
work in the forest a couple of years
ago, and came across big tusker
elephant, which not only charged him
but pursued him in determined man.
ner. He was unarmed and it was
lucky for him that in his flight ne
came to a deep nullah. or ravine,
across which he succeeded in scram--
bling and which the elephant could
not cross.
An elephant cannot jump, and the
width of a ditch or ravine which he
can cross cannot exceed the length of
his stride. In the old days, when
elephants were more plentiful, forest
bungalows used to have deep and
square but surprisingly narrow bitches
dug around them to keep elephants
out. An elephant is rather fond
sometimes of pulling the roofs off
houses. l should say that a ditch six
feet wide would keep out most ele-
plants, and that one seven feet wide
would defeat any Indian elephant that
ever existed.
1t is difficult to say why certain
elephants should be inclined to at
tack human beings unprovoked. Those
that do so are, as far as my expert
ence goes, invariably solitary males.
Some people have a theory that the
temper of rogue elephants has been
soured because they have been driven
out of the herd. but as they are gem
orally big and powerful tuskers it
does not seem clear how they could
have been driven away.
Perhaps a more reasonable expla-
nation is that the rogue elephant has
a morOSe disposition and voluntarily
adopts the life of a hermit and dis