488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



upon their manufacture of ivory. Probably there is no more sagacious 

 animal than a well-trained elephant, and the development of such high 

 instincts as these animals exhibit may form an additional illustration 

 of the marked influence of association with man in inducing the growth 

 of intelligence and reasoning powers in the animal creation. ~No one 

 may doubt that the dog, for instance, has benefited to a marked 

 degree from such association with human surroundings, and that the 

 comparatively low mental powers of many other animals are susceptible 

 of higher development through domestication is an idea fully sup- 

 ported by all that is known of instances where a wild race, or indi- 

 vidual animal of wild habits, has been brought in contact with man. 

 The "learned pigs" and tame hares are cases in point ; and the rela- 

 tively low mental powers of many of the apes may be largely attrib- 

 uted to that want of interest in " poor relations " with which humanity, 

 as a body, views the quadrumanous tribes. 



The records of popular natural history teem with examples of the 

 sagacity of elephants, a mental quality which, it may be added, is 

 likely to owe much to the relatively long life and corresponding 

 opportunities of acquiring experience which these animals possess ; 

 while it has been also remarked that, as the elephant, unlike the dog, 

 rarely breeds in captivity, and as each individual elephant has to 

 acquire, independently of heredity, its own knowledge of the world 

 and of man, so to speak, these great animals present infinitely more 

 remarkable examples of animal sagacity than the dog. One specially 

 interesting feature of elejm ant-life consists in the aid given by the 

 domesticated elephant to man in the capture of the wild species. The 

 fact of these animals entering into an offensive and, from its very 

 nature, an intelligent alliance with man, against their own race, may be 

 regarded either as illustrating the desire to benefit the race by confer- 

 ring upon them the blessings of civilized life and employment, or as 

 exemplifying a process of demoralization and treacherous develop- 

 ment which might afford an argument against the universally bene- 

 ficial effects of domestication of the animal form. Nor is the probem 

 rendered any the less attractive to the metaphysician and moralist, 

 when it is discovered that it is through the caresses and blandishments 

 of the false females that the wild elephants are tempted into the snare : 

 the parallelism between the experiences of lower and higher life being 

 too obvious in this instance to escape remark. 



Probably no animal exhibits a greater knowledge or instinctive ap- 

 prehension of danger than an elephant. Instances are numerous, for 

 example, when an elephant has refused to cross a bridge esteemed safe 

 by his human guides, but which has collapsed with the animal's weight, 

 when, goaded and tortured to proceed, he has advanced in despair, only 

 to find himself immersed in the water below. But cases are also re- 

 corded in which the danger experienced by the elephant itself has 

 apparently not rendered it insensible to the safety of its keeper. " The 



