The voice of the keeper, with a very limited vocabulary of articulate sounds, serves almost alone to guide the elephant in his domestic occupations.[1] Sir EVERARD HOME, from an examination of the muscular fibres in the drum of an elephant's ear, came to the conclusion, that notwithstanding the distinctness and power of his perception of sounds at a greater distance than other animals, he was insensible to their harmonious modulation and destitute of a musical ear.[2] But Professor HARRISON, in a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy in 1847, has stated that on a careful examination of the head of an elephant which he had dissected, he could "see no evidence of the muscular structure of the _membrana tympani_ so accurately described by Sir E. HOME." Sir EVERARD'S deduction, I may observe, is clearly inconsistent with the fact that the power of two elephants may be combined by singing to them a measured chant, somewhat resembling a sailor's capstan song; and in labour of a particular kind, such as hauling a stone with ropes, they will thus move conjointly a weight to which their divided strength would be unequal.[3] [Footnote 1: The principal sound by which the mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions of the elephants is a repetition, with various modulations, of the words _ur-re! ur-re!_ This is one of those interjections in which the sound is so expressive of the sense that persons in charge of animals of almost every description throughout the world appear to have adopted it with a concurrence that is very curious. The drivers of camels in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage them to speed by shouting _ar-ré! ar-ré!_ The Arabs in Algeria cry _eirich!_ to their mules. The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where mules are still driven with cries of _arré_ (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of "arrieros"). In France the Sportsman excites the hound by shouts of _hare! hare!_ and the waggoner there turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word _hurhaut!_ In the North, "_Hurs_ was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed;" and to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their pigs with shouts of _hurrish!_ a sound closely resembling that used by the mahouts in Ceylon.] [Footnote 2: _On the Difference between the Human Membrana Tympani and that of the Elephant_. By Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart., Philos. Trans., 1823. Paper by Prof. HARRISON. Proc. Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 386.] [Footnote 3: I have already noticed the striking effect produced on the captive elephants in the corral, by the harmonious notes of an ivory flute; and on looking to the graphic description which is given by ÆLIAN of the exploits which he witnessed as performed by the elephants exhibited at Rome, it is remarkable how very large a share of their training appears to have been ascribed to the employment of music.