In their external form also the two Asiatic Elephants appear to present some differences. Heer Westerman, Director of the Gardens of the Zoological Society of Amsterdam, which has for several years possessed two female elephants of middling age, one from Calcutta and the other from Sumatra, informs me, on this subject, that the Sumatran example is more slender and more finely built than the Bengalese, that it has a longer and thinner snout, and that the rump at me end is more broadened and covered with longer and stronger hairs, in which respect it reminds one rather of the African than the Indian Elephant, and lastly that the Sumatran animal is more remarkable for its intellectual development than the Indian.
The last mentioned observation agrees in a remarkable way with what Heer Diard has lately written concerning the Elephant of Ceylon. He says, on this matter, "l'Elephant de Ceylon se distingue de celui des Indes par une aptitude d'intelligence instinctive, celle de facile éducabilité: aussi ces elephans de Ceylon, de tout temps recherchés par les Princes de l'Inde se trouvent l'être encore aujourdhui plus qu' aucun autre par les Anglais pour les differens services auxquels on les employe. J'ai eu l'occasion d'observer plusieurs grandes troupes de ces animaux et une particulièrement, qui avait fini par se laisser prendre dans une grande enceinte établie par les ordres du Gouvernement, qui à cette époque où la guerre de l'Inde etait encore loin d'etre terminée faisait tout ce qu'il est possible pour recruter un certain nombre de ces animaux afin de les diriger vers le Bengale."
When we collect what is known respecting the distribution of both species of Asiatic Elephants, it seems that this animal is met with eastward of the Indus throughout the whole of Hindostan, Bengal, and the wide districts of Further India to Siam and Cochin- China, and also on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra; that one of the species, E. sumatranus, has only yet been met with on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra,[1] whilst the so-called Indian Elephant has been brought to Europe exclusively from Continental India.
So far as I can discover, the greater number of Elephants brought to Europe from Continental India, have been obtained from Bengal. It remains therefore a question, whether all the Elephants of Continental India belong really to one species, or whether, in these widely extended regions, there may not be different species of Elephants, and the Elephant of Trans-gangetic India may not perhaps belong to E. sumatranus, A similar question may be asked with respect to the Elephant of Southern India, compared with the E. sumatranus of Ceylon, since these districts approach one another very nearly. We have, it is true, no more reasons for answer-
- ↑ The whole area of the distribution of the Asiatic Elephants is, on the globe, embraced in a district of the form of an elongated quadrangle of 40 degrees in length and 25 in breadth, of which about half is taken up by sea. It lies between 65° and 105° E. L. and from N. to S. extends from about 35° and 25° N. to 5° S.
