MENTAL CAPACITY OF THE ELEPHANT. 505 



the wonderfully intelligent animals they are. For many generations 

 the horse has been bred for strength, for speed, or for beauty of form, 

 but the breeding of the dog has been based chiefly on his intelligence. 

 With all his advantages, his comprehensive faculties, even in the most 

 exceptional individuals of a whole race, are not to be compared to 

 those of any adult elephant fresh from the jungle. 



The extreme difficulty in teaching a dog of mature age even the 

 simplest thing is so well known that it has passed into a proverb : " It 

 is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." In other words, the con- 

 . ditions must be favorable. What is the case with the elephant ? The 

 question shall be answered by Sanderson. In his " Wild Beasts of In- 

 dia," he says : " Nor are there any elephants which can not be easily sub- 

 jugated, whatever their size or age. The largest and oldest elephants 

 are frequently the most easily tamed, as they are less apprehensive 

 than the younger ones." 



The most striking feature in the education of an elephant is the 

 suddenness of his transition from a wild and lawless denizen of the 

 forest to the quiet, plodding, good-tempered, and cheerful beast of 

 draught or burden. There takes place in the keddah, or pen of cap- 

 ture, a mighty struggle between the giant strength of the captive and 

 the ingenuity of man, ably seconded by a few powerful tame elephants. 

 When he finds his strength utterly overcome by man's intelligence, he 

 yields to the inevitable, and accepts the situation philosophically. 

 Sanderson once had a narrow escape from death while on the back of 

 a tame elephant inside a keddah attempting to secure a wild female. 

 She fought his elephant long and viciously, with the strength and 

 courage of despair, but she was finally overcome by superior numbers. 

 Although her attack on Sanderson in the keddah was of the most 

 murderous description, he states that her conduct after her defeat 

 was most exemplary, and she never afterward showed any signs of 

 ill-temper. 



Mr. Sanderson and an elephant-driver once mounted a full-grown 

 female elephant on the sixth day after her capture, without even the 

 presence of a tame animal. Sir Emerson Tennent records an instance 

 wherein an elephant fed from the hand on the first night of its capture, 

 and in a very few days evinced pleasure at being patted on the head. 

 Such instances as the above can be multiplied indefinitely. To what 

 else shall they be attributed than philosophic reasoning on the part of 

 the elephant ? The orang-outang, so often put forward as his intellect- 

 ual superior, when captured alive at any other period of life than that 

 of helpless infancy, is vicious, aggressive, and intractable for weeks 

 and months, if not during the remainder of its life. Orangs captured 

 when fully adult exhibit the most tiger-like ferocity, and are wholly 

 intractable. 



If dogs are naturally superior to elephants in general intellect, it 

 should be as easy to tame and educate newly-caught wild dogs or 



