great abundance in the woods, from the largeness of a cow to the
smallness of a hare, for here is a creature in this land no bigger than
the latter, though every part rightly resembleth a deer: it is called
_meminna_, of a grey colour, with white spots and good meat."[1] The
little creature which thus dwelt in the recollection of the old man, as
one of the memorials of his long captivity, is the small "musk deer"[2]
so called in India, although neither sex is provided with a musk-bag.
The Europeans in Ceylon know it by the name of the "moose deer;" and in
all probability the terms _musk_ and _moose_ are both corruptions of the
Dutch word "_muis_," or "mouse" deer, a name particularly applicable to
the timid and crouching attitudes and aspect of this beautiful little
creature. Its extreme length never reaches two feet; and of those which
were domesticated about my house, few exceeded ten inches in height,
their graceful limbs being of proportionate delicacy. It possesses long
and extremely large tusks, with which it can inflict a severe bite. The
interpreter moodliar of Negombo had a _milk white_ meminna in 1847,
which he designed to send home as an acceptable present to Her Majesty,
but it was unfortunately killed by an accident.[3]
[Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Relation, &c._, book i. c. 6.]
[Footnote 2: Moschus meminna.]
[Footnote 3: When the English look possession of Kandy, in 1803, they
found "five beautiful milk-white deer in the palace, which was noted as
a very extraordinary thing."--_Letter_ in Appendix to PERCIVAL'S
_Ceylon_, p. 428. The writer does not say of what species they were.]
[Illustration: "MOOSE" DEER (MOSCHUS MEMINNA)]
_Ceylon Elk_.--In the mountains, the Ceylon elk[1], which reminds one of
the red deer of Scotland, attains the height of four or five feet; it
abounds in all shady places that are intersected by rivers; where,
though its chase affords an endless resource to the sportsman, its
venison scarcely equals in quality the inferior beef of the lowland ox.
In the glades and park-like openings that diversify the great forests of
the interior, the spotted Axis troops in herds as numerous as the fallow
deer in England: but, in journeys through the jungle, when often
dependent on the guns of our party for the precarious supply of the
table, we found the flesh of the Axis[2] and the Muntjac[3] a sorry
substitute for that of the pea-fowl, the jungle-cock, and flamingo. The
occurrence of albinos is very frequent in troops of the axis. Deer's
horns are an article of export from Ceylon, and considerable quantities
are annually sent to the United Kingdom.
[Footnote 1: Rusa Aristotelis. Dr. GRAY has lately shown that this is
the great _axis_ of Cuvier.--_Oss. Foss._ 502. t. 39; f. 10: The
Singhalese, on following the elk, frequently effect their approaches by
so imitating the call of the animal as to induce them to respond. An
instance occurred during my residence in Ceylon, in which two natives,
whose mimicry had mutually deceived them, crept so close together in the
jungle that one shot the other, supposing the cry to proceed from the
game.]
[Footnote 2: Axis maculata, _H. Smith_.]
[Footnote 3: Stylocerus muntjac, _Horss_.]
VII. PACHYDERMATA.--_The Elephant_.--The elephant, and the wild boar,
the Singhalese "waloora,"[1] are the only representatives of the
_pachydermatous_ order. The latter, which differs somewhat from the wild
boar of India, is found in droves in all parts of the island where
vegetation and water are abundant.
[Footnote 1: Mr. BLYTH of Calcutta has distinguished, from the hog,
common in India, a specimen sent to him from Ceylon, the skull of which
approaches in form, that of a species from Borneo, the _susbarbatus_ of
S. Müller.]
The elephant, the lord paramount of the Ceylon forests, is to be met
with in every district, on the confines of the woods, in the depths of
which he finds concealment and shade during the hours when the sun is
high, and from which he emerges only at twilight to wend his way towards
the rivers and tanks, where he luxuriates till dawn, when he again seeks
the retirement of the deep forests. This noble animal fills so dignified
a place both in the zoology and oeconomy of Ceylon, and his habits in a
state of nature have been so much misunderstood, that I shall devote a
separate section to his defence from misrepresentation, and to an
exposition of what, from observation and experience, I believe to be his
genuine character when free in his native domains. But this seems the
proper place to allude to a recent discovery in connexion with the
elephant, which strikingly confirms a conjecture which I ventured to
make elsewhere[1], relative to the isolation of Ceylon and its
distinctness, in many remarkable particulars, from the great continent
of India. Every writer who previously treated of the island, including
the accomplished Dr. Davy and the erudite Lassen, was contented, by a
glance at its outline and a reference to its position on the map, to
assume that Ceylon was a fragment, which in a very remote age had been
torn from the adjacent mainland, by some convulsion of nature. Hence it
was taken for granted that the vegetation which covers and the races of
animals which inhabit it, must be identical with those of Hindustan; to
which Ceylon was alleged to bear the same relation as Sicily presents to
the peninsula of Italy. MALTE BRUN[2] and the geographers generally,
declared the larger animals of either to be common to both. I was led to
question the soundness of this dictum;--and from a closer examination of
its geological conformation and of its botanical and zoological
characteristics I came to the conclusion that not only is there an
absence of sameness between the formations of the two localities; but
that plants and animals, mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects exist in
Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora and fauna of the Dekkan;
but which present a striking affinity, and occasionally an actual
identity, with those of the Malayan countries and some of the islands of
the Eastern Archipelago. Startling as this conclusion appeared to be, it
was strangely in unison with the legends of the Singhalese themselves,
that at an infinitely remote period Ceylon formed an integral portion of
a vast continent, known in the mythical epics of the Brahmans by the
designation of "_Lanka_;" so immense that its southern extremity fell
below the equator, whilst in breadth it was prolonged till its western
and eastern boundaries touch at once upon the shores of Africa and
China.
[Footnote 1: _Ceylon, &c._, by Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT, vol. i. pp. 7,
13, 85, 160, 183, n., 205, 270, &c.]
[Footnote 2: MALTE BRUN, _Geogr. Univ._, l. xlix.]
Dim as is this ancient tradition, it is in consistency with the
conclusions of modern geology, that at the commencement of the tertiary
period northern Asia and a considerable part of India were in all
probability covered by the sea but that south of India land extended
eastward and westward connecting Malacca with Arabia. PROFESSOR ANSTED
has propounded this view. His opinion is, that the Himalayas then
existed only as a chain of islands, and did not till a much later age
become elevated into mountain ranges,--a change which took place during
the same revolution that raised the great plains of Siberia and Tartary
and many parts of north-western Europe. At the same time the great
continent whose position between the tropics has been alluded to, and
whose previous existence is still indicated by the Coral islands, the
Laccadives, the Maldives, and the Chagos group, underwent simultaneous
depression by a counteracting movement.[1]
[Footnote 1: _The Ancient World_, by D.T. ANSTED, M.A., &c., pp.
322-324.]
But divested of oriental mystery and geologic conjecture, and brought to
the test of "geographical distribution," this once prodigious continent
would appear to have connected the distant Islands of Ceylon and Sumatra
and possibly to have united both to the Malay peninsula, from which the
latter is now severed by the Straits of Malacca. The proofs of physical
affinity between these scattered localities are exceedingly curious.
A striking dissimilarity presents itself between some of the Mammalia of
Ceylon and those of the continent of India. In its general outline and
feature, this branch of the island fauna, no doubt, exhibits a general
resemblance to that of the mainland, although many of the larger animals
of the latter are unknown in Ceylon: but, on the other hand, some
species discovered there are peculiar to the island. A deer[1] as large
as the Axis, but differing from it in the number and arrangement of its
spots, has been described by Dr. Kelaart, to whose vigilance the natural
history of Ceylon is indebted, amongst others, for the identification of
two new species of monkeys[2], a number of curious shrews[3], and an
orange-coloured ichneumon[4], before unknown. There are also two
squirrels[5] that have not as yet been discovered elsewhere, (one of
them belonging to those equipped with a parachute[6],) as well as some
local varieties of the palm squirrel (Sciurus penicillatus, _Leach_).[7]
[Footnote 1: Cervus orizus, KELAART, _Prod. F. Zeyl.,_ p. 83.]
[Footnote 2: Presbytes ursinus, _Blyth_, and P. Thersites, _Elliot_.]
[Footnote 3: Sorex montanus, S. ferrugineus, and Feroculus macropus.]
[Footnote 4: Herpestes fulvescens, KELAART, _Prod. Faun. Zeylan_.. App.
p. 42.]
[Footnote 5: Sciurus Tennentii, _Layard_.]
[Footnote 6: Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kelaart_.]
[Footnote 7: There is a rat found only in the Cinnamon Gardens at
Colombo, Mus Ceylonus, _Kelaart_; and a mouse which Dr. Kelaart
discovered at Trincomalie, M. fulvidiventris, _Blyth_, both peculiar to
Ceylon. Dr. TEMPLETON has noticed a little shrew (Corsira purpurascens,
_Mag. Nat. Hist_. 1855, p. 238) at Neuera-ellia, not as yet observed
elsewhere.]
But the Ceylon Mammalia, besides wanting a number of minor animals found
in the Indian peninsula, cannot boast such a ruminant as the majestic
Gaur[1], which inhabits the great forests from Cape Comorin to the
Himalaya; and, providentially, the island is equally free of the
formidable tiger and the ferocious wolf of Hindustan. The Hyena and
Cheetah[2], common in Southern India, are unknown in Ceylon; and, though
abundant in deer, the island possesses no example of the Antelope or the
Gazelle.
[Footnote 1: Bos cavifrons, _Hodgs_.; B. frontalis, _Lamb_.]
[Footnote 2: Felis jubata, _Schreb_.]
Amongst the Birds of Ceylon, the same abnormity is apparent. About
thirty-eight species will be presently particularised[1], which,
although some of them may hereafter be discovered to have a wider
geographical range, are at present believed to be unknown in continental
India. I might further extend this enumeration, by including the Cheela
eagle of Ceylon, which, although I have placed it in my list as
identical with the _Hematornis cheela_ of the Dekkan, is, I have since
been assured, a different bird, and is most probably the _Falco bido_ of
Horsfield, known to us by specimens obtained from Java and Sumatra.
[Footnote 1: See Chapter on the Birds of Ceylon.]
As to the Fishes of Ceylon, they are of course less distinct; and
besides they have hitherto been very imperfectly compared. But the
Insects afford a remarkable confirmation of the view I have ventured to
propound; so much so that Mr. Walker, by whom the elaborate lists
appended to this work have been prepared, asserts that some of the
families have a less affinity to the entomology of India than to that of
Australia.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Chapter on the Insects of Ceylon.]
But more conclusive than all, is the discovery to which I have alluded,
in relation to the elephant of Ceylon. Down to a very recent period it
was universally believed that only two species of the elephant are now
in existence, the African and the Asiatic; distinguished by certain
peculiarities in the shape of the cranium, the size of the ears, the
ridges of the teeth, the number of vertebræ, and, according to Cuvier,
in the number of nails on the hind feet. The elephant of Ceylon was
believed to be identical with the elephant of India. But some few years
back, TEMMINCK, in his survey of the Dutch possessions in the Indian
Archipelago[1], announced the fact that the elephant which abounds in
Sumatra (although unknown in the adjacent island of Java), and which had
theretofore been regarded as the same species with the Indian one, has
been recently found to possess peculiarities, in which it differs as
much from the elephant of India, as the latter from its African
congener. On this new species of elephant, to which the natives give the
name of _gadjah_, TEMMINCK has conferred the scientific designation of
the _Elephas Sumatranus_.
[Footnote 1: _Coup d'Oeil Général sur les Possessions Néerlandaises dans
l'Inde Archipélagique_.]
The points which entitle it to this distinction he enumerated minutely
in the work[1] before alluded to, but they have been summarized as
follows by Prince Lucien Bonaparte.
[Footnote 1: TEMMINCK, _Coup-d'oeil, &c_., t. i. c. iv. p. 328.; t. ii.
c. iii. p. 91.]
"This species is perfectly intermediate between the Indian and African,
especially in the shape of the skull, and will certainly put an end to
the distinction between _Elephas_ and _Loxodon_, with those who admit
that anatomical genus; since although the crowns of the teeth of _E.
Sumatranus_ are more like the Asiatic animal, still the less numerous
undulated ribbons of enamel are nearly quite as wide as those forming
the lozenges of the African. The number of pairs of false ribs (which
alone vary, the true ones being always six) is fourteen, one less than
in the _Africanus_, _one_ more than in the _Indicus_; and so it is with
the dorsal vertebræ, which are twenty in the _Sumatranus_ (_twenty-one_
and _nineteen_, in the others), whilst the new species agrees with
_Africanus_ in the number of sacral vertebræ (_four_), and with
_Indicus_ in that of the caudal ones, which are _thirty-four_."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Proceed. Zool. Soc. London_, 1849. p. 144, _note_. The
original description of TEMMINCK is as follows:
"Elephas Sumatranus, _Nob_. ressemble, par la forme générale du crâne à
l'éléphant du continent de l'Asie; mais la partie libre des
intermaxillaires est beaucoup plus courte et plus étroite; les cavités
nasales sont beaucoup moins larges; l'espace entre les orbites des yeux
est plus étroit; la partie postérieur du crâne au contraire est plus
large que dans l'espèce du continent.
"Les machelières se rapprochent, par la forme de leur couronne, plutòt
de l'espèce Asíatique que do celle qui est propre à l'Afrique;
c'est-à-dire que leur couronne offre la forme de rubans ondoyés et non
pas en losange; mais ces rubans sont de la largeur de ceux qu'on voit à
la couronne des dents de l'éléphant d'Afrique; ils sont conséquemment
moins nombreux que dans celuí du continent de l'Asie. Les dimensions de
ces rubans, dans la direction d'avant en arrière, comparées à celle
prises dans la direction transversale et latérale, sont en raison de 3
ou 4 à 1; tandis que dans l'éléphant du continent elles sont comme 4 ou
6 à 1. La longueur totale de six de ces rubans, dans l'espèce nouvelle
de Sumatra, ainsi que dans celle d'Afrique, est d'environ 12
centimètres, tandis que cette longueur n'est que de 8 à 10 centimètres
dans l'espèce du continent de l'Asie.
"Les autres formes ostéologiques sont à peu près les mêmes dans les
trois espèces; mais il y a différence dans le nombre des os dont le
squelette se compose, ainsi que le tableau comparatif ci-joint
l'éprouve.
"_L'elephas Africanus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 21 vert. dorsales, 3
lombaires, 4 sacrées, et 26 caudales; 21 paires de côtes, dont 6 vraies,
et 15 fausses. _L'elephas Indicus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 19 dorsales, 3
lombaires, 5 sacrées, et 34 caudales, 19 paires de côtes, dont 6 vraies,
et 3 fausses. _L'elephas Sumatranus_ a 7 vertèbres du cou, 20 dorsales,
3 lombaires, 4 sacrées, et 34 caudales; 20 paires du côtes, dont 6
vraies, et 14 fausses.
"Ces caractères ont été constatés sur trois squelettes de l'espèce
nouvelle, un mâle et une femelle adultes et un jeune mâle. Nous n'avons
pas encore été à même de nous procurer la dépouille de cette espèce."]
PROFESSOR SCHLEGEL of Leyden, in a paper lately submitted by him to the
Royal Academy of Sciences of Holland, (the substance of which he has
obligingly communicated to me, through Baron Bentinck the Netherlands
Minister at this Court), has confirmed the identity of the Ceylon
elephant with that found in the Lampongs of Sumatra. The osteological
comparison of which TEMMINCK has given the results was, he says,
conducted by himself with access to four skeletons of the latter. And
the more recent opportunity of comparing a living Sumatran elephant with
one from Bengal, has served to establish other though minor points of
divergence. The Indian species is more robust and powerful: the
proboscis longer and more slender; and the extremity, (a point, in which
the elephant of Sumatra resembles that of Africa,) is more flattened and
provided with coarser and longer hair than that of India.
PROFESSOR SCHLEGEL, adverting to the large export of elephants from
Ceylon to the Indian continent, which has been carried on from time
immemorial, suggests the caution with which naturalists, in
investigating this question, should first satisfy themselves whether the
elephants they examine are really natives of the mainland, or whether
they have been brought to it from the islands.[1] "The extraordinary
fact," he observes in his letter to me, "of the identity thus
established between the elephants of Ceylon and Sumatra; and the points
in which they are found to differ from that of Bengal, leads to the
question whether all the elephants of the Asiatic continent belong to
one single species; or whether these vast regions may not produce in
some quarter as yet unexplored the one hitherto found only in the two
islands referred to? It is highly desirable that naturalists who have
the means and opportunity, should exert themselves to discover, whether
any traces are to be found of the Ceylon elephant in the Dekkan; or of
that of Sumatra in Cochin China or Siam."
[Footnote 1: A further inquiry suggests itself, how far the intermixture
of the breed may have served to confound specific differences, in the
case of elephants bred on the continent of India, from stock partially
imported from Ceylon?]
To me the establishment of a fact so conclusively confirmatory of the
theory I had ventured to broach, is productive of great satisfaction.
But it is not a little remarkable that the distinction should not long
before have been discovered between the elephant of India and that of
Ceylon. Nor can it be regarded otherwise than as a singular illustration
of "geographical distribution" that two remote islands should be thus
shown to possess in common a species unknown in any other quarter of the
globe. As bearing on the ancient myth which represents both countries as
forming parts of a submerged continent, the discovery is curious--and it
is equally interesting in connection with the circumstance alluded to by
Gibbon, that amongst the early geographers and even down to a
comparatively modern date, Sumatra and Ceylon were confounded; and grave
doubts were entertained as to which of the two was the "Taprobane" of
antiquity. GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, JULIUS SCALIGER, ORTELIUS
and MERCATOR contended for the former; SALMASIUS, BOCHART, CLUVERIUS,
and VOSSIUS for Ceylon: and the controversy did not cease till it was
terminated by DELISLE about the beginning of the last century.
VIII. CETACEA.--Whales are so frequently seen that they have been
captured within sight of Colombo, and more than once their carcases,
after having been flinched by the whalers, have floated on shore near
the lighthouse, tainting the atmosphere within the fort by their rapid
decomposition.
Of this family, one of the most remarkable animals on the coast is the
dugong[1], a phytophagous cetacean, numbers of which are attracted to
the inlets, from the bay of Calpentyn to Adam's Bridge, by the still
water and the abundance of marine algæ in these parts of the gulf. One
which was killed at Manaar and sent to me to Colombo[2] in 1847,
measured upwards of seven feet in length; but specimens considerably
larger have been taken at Calpentyn, and their flesh is represented as
closely resembling veal.
[Footnote 1: _Halicore dugung_, F. Cuv.]
[Footnote 2: The skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History
Society of Belfast.]
[Illustration: THE DUGONG.]
The rude approach to the human outline, observed in the shape of the
head of this creature, and the attitude of the mother when suckling her
young, clasping it to her breast with one flipper, while swimming with
the other, holding the heads of both above water; and when disturbed,
suddenly diving and displaying her fish-like tail,--these, together with
her habitual demonstrations of strong maternal affection, probably gave
rise to the fable of the "mermaid;" and thus that earliest invention of
mythical physiology may be traced to the Arab seamen and the Greeks, who
had watched the movements of the dugong in the waters of Manaar.
Megasthenes records the existence of a creature in the ocean, near
Taprobane, with the aspect of a woman[1]; and Ælian, adopting and
enlarging on his information, peoples the seas of Ceylon with fishes
having the heads of lions, panthers, and rams, and, stranger still,
_cetaceans in the form of satyrs_. Statements such as these must have
had their origin in the hairs, which are set round the mouth of the
dugong, somewhat resembling a beard, which Ælian and Megasthenes both
particularise, from their resemblance to the hair of a woman: "[Greek:
kai gynaikôn opsin echousin aisper anti plokamôn akanthai
prosêrtêntai"][2]
[Footnote 1: MEGASTHENES, _Indica_, fragm. lix. 34,]
[Footnote 2: ÆLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. xvi. ch. xviii.]
The Portuguese cherished the belief in the mermaid, and the annalist of
the exploits of the Jesuits in India, gravely records that seven of
these monsters, male and female, were captured at Manaar in 1560, and
carried to Goa, where they were dissected by Demas Bosquez, physician to
the Viceroy, and "their internal structure found to be in all respects
conformable to the human."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Hist, de la Compagnie de Jésus_, quoted in the _Asiat.
Journ._ vol. xiv. p. 461; and in FORBES' _Orient. Memoirs_, vol. i. p.
421.]
The Dutch were no less inclined to the marvellous, and they propagated
the belief in the mermaid with earnestness and particularity. VALENTYN,
one of their chaplains, in his account of the Natural History of
Amboina, embodied in his great work on the Netherlands' Possessions in
India, published so late as 1727[1], has devoted the first section of
his chapter on the Fishes of that island to a minute description of the
"Zee-Menschen, Zee-Wyven," and mermaids. As to the dugong he admits its
resemblance to the mermaid, but repudiates the idea of its having given
rise to the fable, by being mistaken for one. This error he imagines
must have arisen at a time when observations on such matters were made
with culpable laxity; but now more recent and minute attention has
established the truth beyond cavil.
[Footnote 1: FRAN. VALENTYN, _Beschryving van Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_,
&c. 5 vol. fol. Dordrecht and Amsterdam, MDCCXXVII. vol. iii. p. 330.]
For instance, he states that in 1653, when a lieutenant in the Dutch
service was leading a party of soldiers along the sea-shore in Amboina,
he and all his company saw the mermen swimming at a short distance from
the beach with long and flowing hair, of a colour between gray and
green--and six weeks afterwards, the creatures were again seen by him
and more than fifty witnesses, at the same place, by clear daylight.[1]
[Footnote 1: VALENTYN, _Beschryving, &c._, vol. iii. p. 331.]