The other way is to get acquainted with the elephant, cultivate an intimacy with him, and find out what his ears are to him.  I prefer the second way.  I would patiently watch him as he stands drowsily under an umbrageous banian tree on a sultry day before the monsoon has burst and refreshed earth and air.  So might I note that his ears are incessantly moving, but not turning this way and that to catch sounds—­just flapping, flapping, as if to cool his great temples.  So have I seen the gigantic fruit bats, called flying foxes in India, hanging in hundreds in the upper branches of a tall peepul tree at noon, feeling too hot to sleep, and all fanning themselves in unison with one wing—­a comic spectacle.  And at each flap of the elephant’s ears I would observe that a cloud of flies (for the elephant is not too great to be pestered by the despicable hordes of beggars for blood) were dislodged from their feeding grounds about his head and neck, and, trying to settle about his rear parts, were driven back again by the swinging of his tail.  Then I should say that ear is just a fan.  How significant it is that among the emblems of royalty in the East the three chiefest are an umbrella-bearer, two men who stand behind and swing great punkahs modelled on the elephant’s ear, and two others carrying yak’s tails wherewith to scare the flies from the royal person!  The elephant is a rajah!

There is another mysterious ear which is a stumbling-block to the simple theory-monger.  It is in fashion among a tribe of bats to which belongs the so-called vampire of India.  This monster is fond of coming into your bedroom at midnight through the open windows, but not to suck your blood, for it has little in common with the true vampire of South America.  It brings its dinner with it and hangs from the ceiling, “feeding like horses when you hear them feed.”  You hear its jaws working—­crunch, crunch, crunch, but feel too drowsy to get up and expel it.

When you get up in the morning there on your clean dressing table, just below the place where it hung, are the bloody remains of a sparrow, or the crumbs of a tree-frog.  The servants will tell you that the sparrow was killed and eaten by a rat, but if you rise softly next night when you hear the sound of feeding, and shut the windows, you will find a goblin hanging from the ceiling in the morning, hideous beyond the power of words to tell.  Its ears, thin, membranous and longer than its head, tremble incessantly.  Inside of them is another pair, much smaller than the first, and tuned to their octave, I should guess, while two membranous smelling trumpets of similar pattern rise over the nose.  What is the meaning of these repulsive instruments, and how does that strange beast catch sparrows?  When it comes out after dark and quarters the garden, passing swiftly under and through the branches of trees, they are sound asleep hidden among the leaves, motionless and silent.  But their flesh may be scented, and their gentle breathing heard if you have instruments sufficiently delicate.  Then the ample wings may suddenly enfold the sleeping body, and the savage jaws grip the startled head before there is time even to scream.  Without a doubt this is the secret of the vampire bat’s ears.