ANIMAL GIANTS 7 



the herd, and if this happens to be a solitary bull it exhibits fierce 

 and quarrelsome tactics which may prove the reverse of pleasant. 

 These solitary animals, too, perpetrate a good deal of harm by 

 trampling down crops during their protracted wanderings. 



The smallness of its eye has doubtless attracted the reader's 

 attention when standing before an Elephant, and in comparison with 

 the animal's mammoth proportions the brain it possesses is also of 

 small dimensions. Yet, as has been shown, the Elephant evinces 

 considerable powers of intelligence when it comes under the influence 

 of man, and this in spite of the fact that young animals are rarely 

 captured. 



Generally speaking, the African species exceeds in size its Asiatic 

 relative, but in both kinds the male is the larger of the two sexes. 



Dear old Jumbo, beloved by many both in England and America, 

 was a huge African Elephant, and I well remember how he carried 

 his happy juvenile passengers upon his broad back at the London 

 Zoo. Young England parted regretfully with this favourite 

 occupant of Regent's Park, but it is interesting to recall its memory 

 and to remember that it weighed no less than six and a half tons 

 and measured eleven and a half feet in height. 



These are long-lived beasts, and although it is difficult to 

 accurately determine the life-span of a great many kinds of wild 

 animals, careful records of those kept in confinement enable us to 

 acquire some amount of useful information. Thus an Elephant has 

 been known to live in captivity for over one hundred years, and it is 

 reasonable to suppose that in a natural state, surrounded by all the 

 regal splendour and virgin fastness of its forest home, the animal 

 probably celebrates many more birthdays beyond the century before 

 its life is brought to a close. But how and where does the forest 

 monarch expire? Its body would of necessity attract attention, 

 and yet we are told on unimpeachable authority that the remains 

 of a dead Elephant are rarely met with even in its most favourite 

 haunts ! 



This opens up the interesting question as to how and where 

 many kinds of far commoner and better-known animals die, and why 

 it is that we so seldom locate them. Do they betake themselves to 

 some secluded spot and there pass away in solitude ? Are their dead 

 bodies then preyed upon by various carnivorous animals (including 

 insects) and thus got rid of? The Burying Beetles, as we well 

 know, are the grave-diggers of the insect world, for these persever- 



