of MammiferoiiS Animals - 49 



How often do we see domestic animals, and the dog itself, revolt 

 against bad treatment, and exercise the most cruel vengeance 

 on those who inflict it. The very individuals which we regard 

 as vitious, and which we name restive, arc only essentially dis- 

 tinguished from those which are possessed of mildness and docility, 

 by more imperious propensities, which often, it is true, no means 

 can captivate, hut which, in many cases also, a more judicious 

 application of those commonly used might serve at least to 

 weaken. 



I shall not relate the numerous examples of vengeance inflict- 

 ed by domestic animals, and particularly by horses, upon those 

 who had maltreated them ; the hatred which these animals have 

 cherished towards their cruel masters^ and the time during which 

 it has been retained by them in all its original violence. Such 

 examples are numerous and familiar ; and although they ought 

 to have shown that brutality is a means little calculated to ob- 

 tain obedience, they have been ineffectual for this purpose, and 

 animals are still treated by us as if we had nothing to subject in 

 them but their will. I cannot, however, forbear mentioning one 

 example which was exhibited by an elephant, and this less on 

 account of its rareness among us, than from the peculiar charac- 

 ters which accompanied it. 



This animal was entrusted, at the age of two or three years, 

 to a young man who took care of it, and who taught it various 

 exercises, which he made it repeat for the amusement of the 

 public. It rendered an entire obedience to its master, and felt 

 a lively affection for him. Not only did it submit, without the 

 smallest hesitation, to all his commands, but it was even unhap- 

 py in his absence ; it repelled the advances of every other per- 

 son, and even seemed to eat with a kind of regret, when its food 

 was presented to it by a strange hand. 



So long as this young man was under the eyes of his father, the 

 proprietor of the elephant, whether the influence of his family re- 

 strained him, or age had not yet developed his bad propensi- 

 ties, he conducted himself with propriety toward the animal en- 

 trusted to his care ; but when the elephant came into the pos- 

 session of the royal menagerie, and the young man, who was 

 taken into its service, was left to himself, things became changed. 



OCTOBER — DECEMBER 1827. D 



