The quantity of food daily consumed by an elephant in captivity is calculated at 200 lbs; besides thirty-six pails of water. It consists of turnips, rice, chaff, bran, hay, and sea biscuit. Straw is allowed for his bed, which is generally consumed before morning; besides which, when they are in menageries they receive no small quantity of dainties from visitors. I never could enter the Rotunda in the Paris menagerie, without being furnished with bread or carrots for its inhabitants: the instant the Indian elephant caught sight of me, he used to sit down, get up again, make what was called a curtsy, and play other antics; and the instant I came before him, squat down again; his trunk raised, and his enormous mouth wide open to receive what I threw into it; the attitude was so grotesque and imploring, that it was impossible to deny him. In their native condition, elephants eat the young juicy roots, and branches of trees; the latter of which, they beat two or three times before they take them, and they then tuck them into the left side of their mouths; they also devour grass, and bulbous roots, which they pull up with their proboscis. The vast numbers in which the herds assemble, give some idea of the extent of the vegetable riches which can support such colossal eaters from generation to generation; the weight of an ordinary one will be 7000 lbs, and the mind becomes bewildered, in thinking of the quantity required for the daily sustenance of thousands of such animals. They open paths through forests which would be impenetrable to others; and seem to exercise much judgment in choosing their route, the large bull elephants taking the lead, crushing the jungle, tearing down the branches, and uprooting the trees; the females and the young sometimes amounting to three hundred, march after in single file, and the way thus made is as smooth as a gravel walk. They often carry branches of trees, with which they flap the insects from their bodies as they walk along. A settler's wife complained to Mr. Pringle very bitterly, of the destruction occasioned to her husband's crops by the elephants; which she, with reason, said were too big to wrestle with, and they occasionally seemed to commit mischief from mere wantonness. In the same place, a troop came down one dark and rainy night to the outskirts of the village; but knowing that it was sometimes dangerous to encounter them, the inhabitants did not go out; although they heard them making a terrible bellowing and uproar. It appeared the next morning, that one of the elephants had fallen into an unfinished trench, which had no water in it, and did not know how to get out again. It is supposed, that his companions had pulled him out with their trunks; for there were clearly defined marks of their having stationed themselves on each side; some kneeling, and some standing, and that thus he had been hoisted up.