ked, no disposition to become assailants; and if the attitude
of defence which they instinctively assume prove sufficent to check the
approach of the intruder, no further demonstration is to be apprehended.

Even the hunters who go in search of them find them in positions and
occupations altogether inconsistent with the idea of their being savage,
wary, or revengeful. Their demeanour when undisturbed is indicative of
gentleness and timidity, and their actions bespeak lassitude and
indolence, induced not alone by heat, but probably ascribable in some
degree to the fact that the night has been spent in watchfulness and
amusement. A few are generally browsing listlessly on the trees and
plants within reach, others fanning themselves with leafy branches, and
a few are asleep; whilst the young run playfully among the herd, the
emblems of innocence, as the older ones are of peacefulness and gravity.

Almost every elephant may be observed to exhibit some peculiar action of
the limbs when standing at rest; some move the head monotonously in a
circle, or from right to left; some swing their feet back and forward;
others flap their ears or sway themselves from side to side, or rise and
sink by alternately bending and straightening the fore knees. As the
opportunities of observing this custom have been almost confined to
elephants in captivity, it has been conjectured to arise from some
morbid habit contracted during the length of a voyage by sea[1], or from
an instinctive impulse to substitute a motion of this kind in lieu of
their wonted exercise; but this supposition is erroneous; the propensity
being equally displayed by those at liberty and those in captivity. When
surprised by sportsmen in the depths of the jungle, individuals of a
herd are always occupied in swinging their limbs in this manner; and in
the several corrals which I have seen, where whole herds have been
captured, the elephants in the midst of the utmost excitement, and even
after the most vigorous charges, if they halted for a moment in stupor
and exhaustion, manifested their wonted habit, and swung their limbs or
swayed their bodies to and fro incessantly. So far from its being a
substitute for exercise, those in the government employment in Ceylon
are observed to practise their acquired motion, whatever it may be, with
increased vigour when thoroughly fatigued after excessive work. Even the
favourite practice of fanning themselves with a leafy branch seems le