ELEPHANT MEMOKY AND EMOTIONS. 387 



was carrying baggage, take fright at the smell of a tiger 

 and run off. Eighteen months afterwards this elephant 

 was recognised by its keepers among a herd of wild com- 

 panions, which had been captured and were confined in an 

 enclosure. But when anyone approached the animal he 

 struck out with his trunk, and seemed as fierce as any of 

 the wild herd. An old hunter then mounted a tame 

 elephant, went up to the feral one, seized his ear and 

 ordered him to lie down. Immediately the force of old 

 associations broke through all opposition, the word of 

 command was obeyed, and the elephant while lying down 

 gave a certain peculiar squeak which he had been known 

 to utter in former days. The same author gives another 

 and more interesting account of an elephant which, after 

 having been for only two years tamed, ran wild for fifteen 

 years, and on being then recaptured, remembered in all 

 details the words of command. This, with several other 

 well-authenticated facts of the same kind, 1 shows that the 

 elephant certainly has an exceedingly tenacious memory, 

 rendering credible the statement of Pliny, that in their 

 more advanced age these animals recognise men who were 

 their drivers when young. 2 



Emotions. 



Concerning emotions, the elephant seems to be usually 

 actuated by the most magnanimous of feelings. Even his 

 proverbial vindictiveness appears only to be excited under 

 a sense of remembered injustice. The universally known 

 story of the tailor and the elephant doubtless had a 

 foundation in fact, for there are several authentic cases on 

 record of elephants resenting injuries in precisely the 

 same way ; 3 and Captain Shipp 4 personally tested the 

 matter by giving to an elephant a sandwich of bread, 

 butter, and cayenne pepper. He then waited for six 



1 Kee Bingley, loc. tit., vol. i., pp. 148-51. 



- Hist. Nat., viii., 5. 



* For these and other cases of vindictiveness, see Bingley, loo. cit. t 

 vol. i., pp. 156-8. 



4 Mcmo-irs, vol. i., p. 448. 



