30 Wild Beasts 



less opinions, we looked upon it from the standpoint 

 which Sanderson's description affords. "Though pos- 

 sessed of a proboscis which is capable of guarding 

 it against such dangers, the elephant readily falls into 

 pits dug to receive it, and which are only covered with 

 a few sticks and leaves. Its fellows make no effort (in 

 general) to assist the fallen one, as they might easily do 

 by kicking in the earth around the edge, but fly in terror. 

 It commonly happens that a young elephant tumbles into 

 a pit, near which its mother will remain till the hunters 

 come, without doing anything to help it ; not even feed- 

 ing it by throwing in a few branches. . . . Whole herds 

 of elephants are led into enclosures which they could 

 break through as easily as if they were made of corn 

 stalks . . . and which no other wild animal would enter ; 

 and single ones are caught by their hind legs being tied 

 together by men under cover of tame elephants. Ani- 

 mals that happen to escape are captured again without 

 trouble ; even experience does not bring them wisdom. 

 I do not think that I traduce the elephant, when I say 

 that it is, in many things, a stupid animal." 



Baldwin, Harris, and a few other authorities, report 

 that elephants are sometimes attacked by the black rhi- 

 noceros, but otherwise they have no foes except man. 

 In Sir James Alexander's account (" Excursion into 

 Africa") of the manner in which these beasts attempt 

 to defend themselves against the charge of an enemy 

 of this kind, it is implied that the trunk is habitually 

 used offensively. " In fighting the elephant," he ob- 

 serves, the two-horned black rhinoceros, for no white 



