It is perhaps from this popular belief in their almost illimitable age, that the natives generally assert that the body of a dead elephant is seldom or never to be discovered in the woods.  And certain it is that frequenters of the forest with whom I have conversed, whether European or Singhalese, are consistent in their assurances that they have never found the remains of an elephant that had died a natural death.  One chief, the Wannyah of the Trincomalie district, told a friend of mine, that once after a severe murrain, which had swept the province, he found the carcases of elephants that had died of the disease.  On the other hand, a European gentleman, who for thirty-six years without intermission has been living in the jungle, ascending to the summits of mountains in the prosecution of the trigonometrical survey, and penetrating valleys in tracing roads and opening means of communication,—­one, too, who has made the habits of the wild elephant a subject of constant observation and study,—­has often expressed to me his astonishment that after seeing many thousands of living elephants in all possible situations, he had never yet found a single skeleton of a dead one, except of those which had fallen by the rifle.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This remark regarding the elephant of Ceylon does not appear to extend to that of Africa, as I observe that BEAVER, in his African Memoranda, says that “the skeletons of old ones that have died in the woods are frequently found.”—­African Memoranda relative to an attempt to establish British Settlements at the Island of Bulama.  Lond. 1815, p. 353.]

It has been suggested that the bones of the elephant, may be so porous and spongy as to disappear in consequence of an early decomposition; but this remark would not apply to the grinders or to the tusks; besides which, the inference is at variance with the fact, that not only the horns and teeth, but entire skeletons of deer, are frequently found in the districts inhabited by the elephant.

The natives, to account for this popular belief, declare that the survivors of the herd bury such of their companions as die a natural death.[1] It is curious that this belief was current also amongst the Greeks of the Lower Empire; and PHILE, writing early in the fourteenth century, not only describes the younger elephants as tending the wounded, but as burying the dead: 

[Greek:  “Otan d’ episte tes teleutes o chronos Koinou telous amunan o xenos pherei]."[2]

[Footnote 1:  A corral was organised near Putlam in 1846, by Mr. Morris, the chief officer of the district.  It was constructed across one of the paths which the elephants frequent in their frequent marches, and during the course of the proceedings two of the captured elephants died.  Their carcases were left of course within the enclosure, which was abandoned as soon as the capture was complete.  The wild elephants resumed their path through it, and a few days afterwards the headman reported to Mr. Morris that the bodies had been removed and carried outside the corral to a spot to which nothing but the elephants could have borne them.]