that in the Sanskrit epics "the King of Elephants," who has the distinction of carrying the god Indra, is called _airarata_ or _airavana_, a modification of _airavanta_, "son of the ocean," which again comes from _iravat_, "abounding in water." "Nous aurions done ainsi, comme corrélatif du gree [Greek: elephanto], une ancienne forme, _âirâvanta_ ou _âilâvanta_, affaiblie plus tard en _âirâvata_ ou _âirâvana_.... On connaît la prédilection de l'éléphant pour le voisinage des fleuves, et son amour pour l'eau, dont l'abondance est nécessaire à son bien-être." This Sanskrit name, PICTET supposes, may have been carried to the West by the Phoenicians, who were the purveyors of ivory from India; and, from the Greek, the Latins derived _elephas_, which passed into the modern languages of Italy, Germany, and France. But it is curious that the Spaniards acquired from the Moors their Arabic term for ivory, _marfil_, and the Portuguese _marfim_; and that the Scandinavians, probably from their early expeditions to the Mediterranean, adopted _fill_ as their name for the elephant itself, and _fil-bein_ for ivory; in Danish, _fils-ben_. (See _Journ. Asiat._ 1843, t. xliii. p. 133.) The Spaniards of South America call the palm which produces the vegetable ivory (_Phytelephas macrocarpa_) _Palma de marfil_, and the nut itself, _marfil vegetal_. Since the above was written Gooneratné Modliar, the Singhalese Interpreter to the Supreme Court at Colombo, has supplied me with another conjecture, that the word elephant may possibly be traced to the Singhalese name of the animal, _alia_, which means literally, "the huge one." _Alia_, he adds, is not a derivation from Sanskrit or Pali, but belongs to a dialect more ancient than either.] From time immemorial the natives have been taught to capture and tame them and the export of elephants from Ceylon to India has been going on without interruption from the period of the first Punic War.[1] In later times all elephants were the property of the Kandyan crown; and their capture or slaughter without the royal permission was classed amongst the gravest offences in the criminal code. [Footnote 1: ÆLIAN, _de Nat. Anim._ lib. xvi. c. 18; COSMAS INDICOPL., p. 128.]