OF WILD ANIMALS 109 



every summer, valuable services of a serious nature in carrying 

 children and other visitors around her yard, and only once or 

 twice has she shown a contrary or obstinate spirit. 



Tame elephants never tread on the feet of their attendants 

 or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of 

 the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet 

 are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme 

 and wholly voluntary solicitude for the safety of his human 

 attendants can not be due to anything else than independent 

 reasoning. The most intelligent dog is apt to greet his master 

 by planting a pair of dirty paws against his coat or trousers. 

 The most sensible carriage-horse is liable to step on his master's 

 foot or crowd him against a wall in a moment of excitement; but 

 even inside the keddah, with wild elephants all about, and a 

 captive elephant hemmed in by three or four tame animals, the 

 noosers safely work under the bodies and between the feet of 

 the tame elephant until the feet of the captive are tied. 



All who have witnessed the tying of captives in a keddah 

 wherein a whole wild herd has been entrapped, testify to the 

 uncanny human-like quality of the intelligence displayed by 

 the tame elephants who assist in tying, leading out and sub- 

 jugating the wild captives. They enter into the business with 

 both spirit and understanding, and as occasion requires will 

 deceitfully cajole or vigorously punish a troublesome captive. 

 Sir Emerson Tennent asserts that the tame elephants display 

 the most perfect conception of every movement, both of the 

 object to be attained and the means to accomplish it. 



Memory in the Elephant. So far as memory may 

 be regarded as an index of an animal's mental capacity, the 

 weight of evidence is most convincingly creditable to the 

 elephant. As a test of memory in an animal, we hold that a 

 trained performance surpasses all others. During the past 

 forty years millions of people have witnessed in either Barnum's 

 or Ringling Brothers' shows, or in the two combined, an imita- 

 tion military drill performed by from twelve to twenty elephants 



