224 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

describable. Their cries of joy, says Mrs. Bowdich, shook
the whole building, and they blew air from their trunks
resembling the blasts from smiths’ bellows. The female moved
her ears with great rapidity, and entwined her trunk round
the body of the male. The male encircled her with his
trunk and shed tears.

The The sagacity of the elephant has been said
Hlephant’s sometimes to equal that. of the dog. A striking
Sagacity. illustration of it is related in Pettit’s work on the

Tinnevelly Missions. “While the large chapel at Nagercoil
was building the missionaries obtained the loan of a trained
elephant for drawing the larger timber used in its erection.
The late Mrs. Mault kindly saw the animal regularly fed,
lest the food should be stolen by the attendant. One day
the allowance of rice seemed very deficient in quantity, and
the good lady expostulated on the subject with the keeper.
Raising his hands to heaven, the man loudly, and with great
apparent earnestness and sincerity, repudiated the idea of
his having taken any of the rice. ‘Do you think, madam,
that I would rob my child? No, never! no more than I
would deprive my own children of their daily food.’ While
he was speaking and gesticulating, the intelligent creature,
slyly extending his trunk, unfastened the man’s waist-cloth,
spilling the missing rice, which had been concealed in a corner
of the cloth, and exposing the dishonesty of the attendant.”
Some years ago there was an elephant who was

Centenarian known to be a hundred years old, named Soup-
Blephant. ramany, or Old Soup as he was called, who
lived upon the banks of the Ganges near the city of Cawn-
pore. On one occasion Old Soup was engaged with a num-
ber of other elephants and a party of soldiers, under the
direction of Major Daly, in loading a ship with bags of rice.
While the work was proceeding one of the elephants began
to throw the bags into the river, and it was found that the
animal had gone mad. Having killed his keeper the elephant