elephants that had been in the neighbourhood all
day must resort at night.  Major Skinner,
causing his fires to be put out and complete
silence preserved, mounted an enormous tree
that overhung the tank, to watch the movements
of the elephants.  After long waiting, one
unusually large elephant came from the dense cover
into the moonlit open ground.  Stopping at
times to listen and advancing slowly, he came to
the water, had his feet in it, but did not drink.
Not the voice of a single elephant was to be
heard in the forest, although they had been
roaring and breaking the jungle through all day.
The huge vidette slowly returned to the first
position he had taken after emerging from the
forest.  There he was joined by five others,
with whom he again cautiously advanced till near
the tank, where he set them as patrols. Then he
returned and re-entered the forest, to come out
again as leader of the main body of eighty or a
hundred animals.  He led them slowly forward
until near the tank, left them while he advanced
to make one more reconnoissance, returned, and
seemed to give the word that set the whole mass
loose to revelry.  "Then," writes Major Skinner,
"when the poor animals had gained possession
of the tank (the leader being the last to enter),
they seemed to abandon themselves to enjoyment.
Such a mass of animal life I had never
before seen huddled together in so narrow a
space.  It seemed to me as though they would
have nearly drunk the tank dry.  I watched
them with great interest until they had satisfied
themselves as well in bathing as in drinking,
when I tried how small a noise would apprise
them of the proximity of unwelcome neighbours.
I had but to break a little twig, and the solid
mass instantly took to flight like a herd of
frightened deer, each of the smaller calves being
apparently shouldered and carried along between
two of the elder ones."

The wild elephant needs water greatly, and is
so little troubled by the troubling of his pool,
that a writer of the fourteenth century declared
his preference to be for muddy water, and said
that he stirred clear water with his foot before
he drank. Being large and buoyant he swims
naturally with a great part of his body above
water, but he prefers total immersion, with his
trunk running up like the air-pipe of a diver.
In the dry season he scoops little wells for
himself, leaving one side perpendicular against which
water may stand, and the other side sloping, in
order that he may reach it without breaking
down the sand.

Sir Emerson multiplies arguments from
evidence in favour of the fact which Professor
Owen has suspected, but no naturalist has
asserted, that the peculiar form of the long narrow
stomach of the elephant divided into cells by
many folds at one end, is designed to enable it,
though not a ruminating animal, to retain
water unconsumed, as is done by the camel and
the llama.  It appears to be certain that this
is the case.  It has always been known that the
elephant could retain water and discharge it at
will from his trunk, but it was supposed that he
must needs have kept it in his trunk. The truth
seems to be that he has in his stomach a small
cistern.  An old Oriental writer has perhaps told
simple truth when he thus describes what may
still frequently be seen: "An elephant frequently
with his trunk takes water out of his stomach
and sprinkles himself with it, and it is not in
the least offensive."  The common habit of the
elephant is to throw sand over his skin, and
then moisten it with water thrown from his
proboscis, after thrusting his proboscis down into
his mouth.

The last fact that we may repeat concerning
the ways of the elephant at home, is, that he is
a fidgety creature.  As he stands, he either
moves his head in a monotonous way from right
to left, or flaps his ears, or swings his feet
backwards and forwards, or rises and sinks by
alternately straightening and bending his knees, or
sways himself from side to side.  When this
was seen in elephants brought to menageries, the
habit was supposed to have been acquired on
board ship.  But it is their way at home.  Even
when standing stupified after excitement in the
corral to which they have just been driven, they
will fall into these movements, and, when
fatigued by service of man, they seem to find more
comfort in their fidgety motions than even in
the leafy branch held by the trunk with which
they fan themselves gravely and gracefully.

For all other matters concerning the elephant,
we heartily commend the reader to the writer
who has eyed the creature so attentively, and
understands him so well.  But we cannot close the
book without a purpose of returning to it for
some other delightful information on some other
topics, as to which it is equally original, and
equally sound.

ECONOMY IN SHEEPSKIN.

ENGLISHMEN in South Australia have made
light of the mysteries of conveyance, and are
resolved, when dealing with real property, to cut
down their expenditure in sheepskin.  Under the
South Australian "Real Property Act," which
came into operation last Midsummer
twelvemonth, a mortgage is effected in a quarter of an
hour at the cost of half a sovereign, and a
transfer or release in five minutes, for five
shillings. The colonial conveyancers resent this
insult on their craft, and what is the result of
their hostility?  The colonists find out that
they are now able to do their own conveyancing.

Everybody knows something of the terrible
complexity of English law concerning land. The
difficulty partly comes of the desire, maintained
through centuries, to meet the advancing
requirements of society without repealing laws
adapted to the tenure of land under the feudal
system. Our law of real property spends
exquisite refinement upon the maintenance and
evasion of unsuitable conditions. It was
described in letters patent under the great seal of
James the First, as "manifold, intricate, chargeable,
tedious, and uncertain."  By Blackstone it
was displayed as a proof of  "the vast powers of