The price of elephants has increased in India of late years, though their numbers are not growing less. In 1835 they could be bought for $225 apiece; in 1855 for $375; in 1874, $660. Now $750 is the lowest figure for which even a young animal can be purchased. Though the prices are very capricious, good females of full growth bring from $1,000 to $1,500; and $10,000 is often paid for a fine _Koomeriah_. These are all bought up by rájahs and others, who use them in their retinues, and for temple purposes. Elephants were often in the olden times grossly treated and starved; but in the present day they are too valuable to be neglected, and are, as a rule, carefully tended when under the observation of Europeans; but, if left to the mercies of the natives to-day, they will often deprive them of food if any thing can be gained by it. The captive elephants require much care, from the enormous amount of food they eat. In Bengal and Madras, the government decides how much each elephant shall have for breakfast, dinner, and supper; and the allowance is a liberal one. In Bengal the rations per day are four hundred pounds of green fodder, which means grass, sugar-cane, or branches of trees; or two hundred and forty pounds of dry fodder, namely, stalks of cut grain. In Madras, only two hundred and fifty pounds of green fodder, and one hundred and twenty-five of dry, are allowed;—not by any means the amount a full-grown, hearty elephant will eat. A large tusker requires eight hundred pounds of green fodder every eighteen hours, or day. In eight females which were watched by Mr. Sanderson, commencing at six P.M., they ate an average weight of six hundred and fifty pounds by twelve A.M. the next day. They also had eighteen pounds of grain a day. The elephants are required to bring in their own green fodder; and one can conveniently carry a load of eight hundred pounds, or one day’s food. The discrepancy between this showing and that which the Madras elephants received, was made a subject of investigation by the government at the suggestion of Mr. Sanderson, and resulted in the poor creatures receiving their proper allowance. It was found by the investigating officers, that the animals which had been having two hundred and fifty pounds of green fodder, could eat seven hundred and fifty pounds of dry sugar-cane: so for years they had been worked hard and half starved, merely because the government had fixed the rate _per diem_. This is another instance of the reforms that have been instituted by Mr. Sanderson, who has the thanks of all admirers of this noble animal. If an elephant in confinement possesses such a seemingly enormous appetite, a herd must be an expensive luxury to keep. In Bengal the expense for one elephant _per mensem_ is as follows:— RS. AS.[4]