ABOUT ELEPHANTS. 491 



ing Mr. Turley's attention to the fore-leg was simply an expression of 

 admiration for the gentler treatment to which he had subjected his 

 patient ; the quieter medical treatment contrasting apparently with 

 the rougher surgical measure to which the fore-leg had been subjected. 

 It is thus clear not merely that the elephantine nature is endowed with 

 an active memory, but that a lively sense of gratitude for past kindness 

 is also represented in the list of mental attributes of this giant race. 



A parallel instance of elephant memory is afforded by the case of 

 an elephant which, having broken loose from the stables on a stormy 

 night, escaped into the jungles. Four years thereafter, when a drove 

 of wild elephants was captured in the " keddah," or inclosure, the 

 keeper of the lost elephant went to inspect the new arrivals, arid 

 climbed on the railings of the " keddah " to obtain a satisfactory view 

 of the captured animals. Having fancied that among the animals he 

 recognized the escaped elephant an idea ridiculed by his comrades 

 he called his lost charge by name. The animal at once came close to 

 the barrier, and, on the keeper proceeding into the inclosure and com- 

 manding it to lie down, the elephant obeyed, and the man led his for- 

 mer charge triumphantly forth from among its wild companions. But 

 the memory of kindnesses is equaled in the elephant by that which 

 recalls acts of injury to remembrance. The well-known story of the 

 Indian elephant which, on being pricked by a native tailor near whose 

 stall it had wandered, returned and deluged the man with a shower- 

 bath of dirty water, finds many parallels in the history of elephant 

 character. An elephant, which was kept at Versailles by Louis XIV, 

 was in the habit of revenging himself for affronts and injuries. A man 

 who, feigning to throw something into his mouth, disappointed him, 

 was beaten to the ground with the trunk and trampled upon. On a 

 painter desiring to sketch this elephant with trunk erect and mouth 

 open, his servant was instructed to feed the elephant for the purpose 

 of inducing the animal to assume the desired attitude. But, the sup- 

 ply of food falling short and elephantine chagrin being aroused, the 

 elephant, drawing up water into his trunk, coolly showered it down 

 upon the unfortunate painter and his sketch, drenching the one, and 

 rendering: the other useless. 



The pugnacity of the elephant is very great, and the determination 

 with which contests are carried on between these animals is highly 

 remarkable. ' Mr. Darwin, on the authority of the late Dr. Falconer, 

 tells us that the Indian species fights in varied fashions, determined 

 by the position and curvature of his tusks. " When they are directed 

 forward' and upward, he is able to fling a tiger to a great distance it 

 is said to even thirty feet ; when they are short and turned downward, 

 he endeavors suddenly to pin the tiger to the ground, and, in conse- 

 quence, is dangerous to the rider, who is liable to be jerked off the 

 howdah " for it is on 



Elephants endorsed with towers," 



