This
Monkey Stands Upward Of Three Feet High, And Weighs About Eighty
Pounds.
He has immense muscular power, and he has also a great
peculiarity in the formation of the skull, which is closely
allied to that of a human being, the lower jaw and the upper
being in a straight line with the forehead.
In monkeys the jaws
usually project. This species exists in most parts of Ceylon,
but I have seen it of a larger size at Newera Ellia thin in any
of the low-country districts.
Elephants are proverbially sagacious, both in their wild state
and when domesticated. I have previously described the building
of a dam by a tame elephant, which was an exhibition of reason
hardly to be expected in any animal. They are likewise
wonderfully sagacious in a wild state in preserving themselves
from accidents, to which, from their bulk and immense weight,
they would be particularly liable, such as the crumbling of the
verge of a precipice, the insecurity of a bridge or the
suffocating depth of mud in a lake.
It is the popular opinion, and I have seen it expressed in many
works, that the elephant shuns rough and rocky ground, over which
he moves with difficulty, and that he delights in level plains,
etc., etc. This may be the case in Africa, where his favorite
food, the mimosa, grows upon the plain, but in Ceylon it is
directly the contrary. In this country the elephant delights in
the most rugged localities; he rambles about rocky hills and
mountains with a nimbleness that no one can understand without
personal experience. So partial are elephants to rocky and
uneven ground that should the ruins of a mountain exist in rugged
fragments along a plain of low, thorny jungle, five chances to
one would be in favor of tracking the herd to this very spot,
where they would most likely be found, standing among the alleys
roamed by the fragments heaped around them. It is surprising to
witness the dexterity of elephants in traversing ground over
which a man can pass with difficulty. I have seen places on the
mountains in the neighborhood of Newera Ellia bearing the
unmistakable marks of elephants where I could not have conceived
it possible for such an animal to stand. On the precipitous
sides of jungle-covered mountains, where the ground is so steep
that a man is forced to cling to the underwood for support, the
elephants still plough their irresistible course. In descending
or ascending these places, the elephant a always describes a
zigzag, and thus lessens the abruptness of the inclination.
Their immense weight acting on their broad feet, bordered by
sharp horny toes, cuts away the side of the hill at every stride
and forms a level step; thus they are enabled to skirt the sides
of precipitous hills and banks with comparative case. The trunk
is the wonderful monitor of all danger to an elephant, from
whatever cause it may proceed. This may arise from the approach
of man or from the character of the country; in either case the
trunk exerts its power; in one by the acute sense of smell, in
the other by the combination of the sense of scent and touch.
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