The elephant’s small range of vision is sufficient to account for its excessive caution, its alarm at unusual noises, and the timidity and panic exhibited at trivial objects and incidents which, imperfectly discerned, excite suspicions for its safety.[1] In 1841 an officer[2] was chased by an elephant that he had slightly wounded.  Seizing him near the dry bed of a river, the animal had its forefoot already raised to crush him; but its forehead being caught at the instant by the tendrils of a climbing plant which had suspended itself from the branches above, it suddenly turned and fled; leaving him badly hurt, but with no limb broken.  I have heard similar instances, equally well attested, of this peculiarity in the elephant.

[Footnote 1:  Menageries, &c., “The Elephant,” p. 27.]

[Footnote 2:  Major ROGERS.  An account of this singular adventure will be found in the Ceylon Miscellany for 1842, vol. i. p. 221.]

On the other hand, the power of smell is so remarkable as almost to compensate for the deficiency of sight.  A herd is not only apprised of the approach of danger by this means, but when scattered in the forest, and dispersed out of range of sight, they are enabled by it to reassemble with rapidity and adopt precautions for their common safety.  The same necessity is met by a delicate sense of hearing, and the use of a variety of noises or calls, by means of which elephants succeed in communicating with each other upon all emergencies.  “The sounds which they utter have been described by the African hunters as of three kinds:  the first, which is very shrill, produced by blowing through the trunk, is indicative of pleasure; the second, produced by the mouth, is expressive of want; and the third, proceeding from the throat, is a terrific roar of anger or revenge."[1] These words convey but an imperfect idea of the variety of noises made by the elephant in Ceylon; and the shrill cry produced by blowing through his trunk, so far from being regarded as an indication of “pleasure,” is the well-known cry of rage with which he rushes to encounter an assailant.  ARISTOTLE describes it as resembling the hoarse sound of a “trumpet."[2] The French still designate the proboscis of an elephant by the same expression “trompe,” (which we have unmeaningly corrupted into trunk,) and hence the scream of the elephant is known as “trumpeting” by the hunters in Ceylon.  Their cry when in pain, or when subjected to compulsion, is a grunt or a deep groan from the throat, with the proboscis curled upwards and the lips wide apart.

[Footnote 1:  Menageries, &c., “The Elephant,” ch. iii. p. 68.]

[Footnote 2:  ARISTOTLE, De Anim., lib. iv. c. 9. “[Greek:  homoion salpingi].”  See also PLINY, lib. x. ch. cxiii.  A manuscript in the British Museum, containing the romance of “Alexander” which is probably of the fifteenth century, is interspersed with drawings illustrative of the strange animals of the East.  Amongst them are two elephants, whose trunks are literally in form of trumpets with expanded mouths.  See WRIGHT’S Archaeological Album, p. 176.]