Wild Asiatic elephants usually travel in herds of from thirty to fifty, though sometimes the number is swelled to one hundred and over; but small herds are the rule, this division allowing them to obtain a much larger supply of food. The necessity of this can be better appreciated when it is known that a band of one hundred elephants require, or will consume, eighty thousand pounds of fodder in a day. The favorite food of the wild Asiatic elephant in Ceylon is palms, especially the cabbage, the young trunks of palmyra and jaggery (_Caryota urens_). They are also very fond of figs, the sacred Bo-tree (_F. religiosa_) found near the temples, as well as the Negaha (_Messua ferrea_). The leaves of the jak-tree are considered a great luxury by the huge creatures; while the bread-fruit, wood-apple, sugar-cane, palm, pineapple, watermelon, and the feathery part of the bamboo, are all to its taste. Among the grasses, the mauritius and Guinea grass are eaten; and all the grains. Cocoanuts they break by rolling them under foot. The African elephant affects the succulent mimosa, and larger shoots and branches than its cousin, its teeth being fitted for a coarser diet. They are, according to Drummond, particularly fond of the fruit of the unganu-tree, which seems to intoxicate them; as they stagger about, performing the most remarkable antics for a clumsy beast; often trumpeting so loudly that they can be heard for miles, and sometimes engaging in terrific encounters. When separated into small herds, the elephants all move in concert, as if there was a mutual understanding as to the general route to be taken. Elephants are extremely sure-footed, and will climb quite steep hills. A paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal describes the methods adopted by the elephant in going down-hill. The writer says, “An elephant descending a bank of too acute an angle to admit of his walking down it direct (which were he to attempt, his huge body, soon disarranging the centre of gravity, would certainly topple over), proceeds thus: his first manœuvre is to kneel down close to the edge of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground. One fore-leg is then cautiously passed a short way down the slope; and, if there is no natural protection to afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one by stamping into the soil if moist, or picking out a footing if dry. This point gained, the other fore-leg is brought down in the same way, and performs the same work, a little in advance of the first, which is thus at liberty to move lower still. Then the first one of the hind-legs is carefully drawn over the side, and then the second; and the hind-feet in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left by the first ones. The course, however, in such precipitous ground is not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank, descending till the animal gains the level below. This an elephant has done at