to move lower still.  Then, first one and then the second of the hind legs is carefully drawn over the side, and the hind-feet in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left by the fore ones.  The course, however, in such precipitous ground is not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank, descending till the animal gains the level below.  This an elephant has done, at an angle of 45 degrees, carrying a howdah, its occupant, his attendant, and sporting apparatus; and in a much less time than it takes to describe the operation.”  I have observed that an elephant in descending a declivity uses his knees, on the side next the bank; and his feet on the lower side only.

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A herd of elephants is a family, not a group whom accident or attachment may have induced to associate together.  Similarity of features and caste attest that, among the various individuals which compose it, there is a common lineage and relationship.  In a herd of twenty-one elephants, captured in 1844, the trunks of each individual presented the same peculiar formation,—­long, and almost of one uniform breadth throughout, instead of tapering gradually from the root to the nostril.  In another instance, the eyes of thirty-five taken in one corral were of the same colour in each.  The same slope of the back, the same form of the forehead, is to be detected in the majority of the same group.

In the forest several herds will browse in close contiguity, and in their expeditions in search of water they may form a body of possibly one or two hundred; but on the slightest disturbance each distinct herd hastens to re-form within its own particular circle, and to take measures on its own behalf for retreat or defence.

The natives of any place which may chance to be frequented by elephants, observe that the numbers of the same herd fluctuate very slightly; and hunters in pursuit of them, who may chance to have shot one or more, always reckon with certainty the precise number of those remaining, although a considerable interval may intervene before they again encounter them.  The proportion of males is generally small, and some herds have been seen composed exclusively of females; possibly in consequence of the males having been shot.  A herd usually consists of from ten to twenty individuals, though occasionally they exceed the latter number; and in their frequent migrations and nightly resort to tanks and water-courses, alliances are formed between members of associated herds, which serve to introduce new blood into the family.