In an interesting paper on the habits of the Indian elephant, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1793, Mr. CORSE says:  “If a wild elephant happens to be separated from its young for only two days, though giving suck, she never after recognises or acknowledges it,” although the young one evidently knows its dam, and by its plaintive cries and submissive approaches solicits her assistance.

If by any accident an elephant becomes hopelessly separated from his own herd, he is not permitted to attach himself to any other.  He may browse in the vicinity, or frequent the same place to drink and to bathe; but the intercourse is only on a distant and conventional footing, and no familiarity or intimate association is under any circumstances permitted.  To such a height is this exclusiveness carried, that even amidst the terror and stupefaction of an elephant corral, when an individual, detached from his own party in the melee and confusion, has been driven into the enclosure with an unbroken herd, I have seen him repulsed in every attempt to take refuge among them, and driven off by heavy blows with their trunks as often as he attempted to insinuate himself within the circle which they had formed for common security.  There can be no reasonable doubt that this jealous and exclusive policy not only contributes to produce, but mainly serves to perpetuate, the class of solitary elephants which are known by the term goondahs, in India, and which from their vicious propensities and predatory habits are called Hora, or Rogues, in Ceylon.[1]

It is believed by the Singhalese that these are either individuals, who by accident have lost their former associates and become morose and savage from rage and solitude; or else that being naturally vicious they have become daring from the yielding habits of their milder companions, and eventually separated themselves from the rest of the herd which had refused to associate with them.  Another conjecture is, that being almost universally males, the death or capture of particular females may have detached them from their former companions in search of fresh alliances.[2] It is also believed that a tame elephant escaping from captivity, unable to rejoin its former herd, and excluded from any other, becomes a “rogue” from necessity.  In Ceylon it is generally believed that the rogues are all males (but of this I am not certain), and so sullen is their disposition that although two may be in the same vicinity, there is no known instance of their associating, or of a rogue being seen in company with another elephant.