There is a vast difference between a tame and a wild elephant; the latter, when entirely subdued and domesticated, is of comparatively little consequence. His main occupation in our country is that of eating peanuts, candies, and fruit doled out to him by visitors to the menageries, and the performance of a few highly sagacious tricks. In their wild state they are the wariest and most cunning of all the denizens of the forest. Nor are they devoid of courage and ferocity when brought to bay, and many experienced hunters have lost their lives in Ceylon while pursuing them. When domesticated in this island they are of great service to the farmers, especially in plowing, harrowing, and rolling the newly broken land. A cultivator which would anchor half a dozen yokes of native bullocks is walked away with in the easiest manner imaginable by a single elephant. They are particularly sagacious in dam-building across streams, and in the construction of bridges, placing the heavy materials just where they are required, and even fitting large logs and stones in their proper places. The amount of food which so large an animal requires is, however, a serious drawback to their employment. Besides five or six hundred pounds of green fodder, an elephant must eat at least twenty pounds of some kind of grain daily, rice preferred, to keep him in working condition. They are usually seen, in their wild state, in small herds of ten or twelve, the majority being females, and generally each one has a calf or baby elephant by her side. There are also certain males, known as "rogues," that roam the forests singly, generally vicious old creatures, discarded by their companions, and always bent upon mischief. These are desperate in the extreme, often courting a conflict with the hunters, fiercely charging them right and left. Why they have been excommunicated from the ranks of their former companions cannot be known, but they are always avoided, both by the natives and by hunters. No attempt is ever made to domesticate a "rogue" elephant. They recognize that they are forever ostracized from the fellowship of their kind, and make no attempt to join other elephants. The theory is that they have become permanently crazed.