106 THE MINDS AND MANNERS 



minutes before I discovered what their sudden quietude really 

 meant. In this instance, as in several others, the still alarm 

 was communicated by silent signals, or sign-language. 



At the Zoological Park we reared an African pygmy elephant 

 (Elephas pumilio). When his slender little tusks grew to 

 eighteen inches in length he made some interesting uses of them. 

 Once when the keepers wished to lead him upon our large plat- 

 form scales, the trembling of the platform frightened him. He 

 conceived the idea that it was unsafe, and therefore that he 

 must keep off. He backed away, halted, and refused to leave 

 solid ground. The men pushed him. He backed, and trump- 

 eted a shrill protest. The men pushed harder, and forced him 

 forward. Trumpeting his wild alarm and his protest against 

 what he regarded as murder, he fell upon his knees and drove 

 his tusks into the earth, quite up to his mouth, to anchor him- 

 self firmly to the solid ground. It was pathetic, but also 

 amusing. When Congo finally was pushed upon the scales and 

 weighed, he left the trembling instrument of torture with an air 

 of disgust and disapproval that was quite as eloquent as words. 

 On several occasions when taken out for exercise in the park, 

 he endeavored to hinder the return to quarters by anchoring 

 himself to Mother Earth. 



Congo once startled us by his knowledge of the usefulness of 

 doors. For a time he was kept in a compartment that had an 

 outside door running sidewise on a trolley track, and controlled 

 by two hanging chains, one to close it and one to open it. Each 

 chain had on its end a stout iron ring for a handle. One chilly 

 morning when I went to see Congo, I asked his keeper to open 

 his door, so that he could go out. 



The keeper did so, by pulling the right hand chain. The 

 moment the draft of chilly outer air struck Congo, who stood 

 in the centre of his stall facing me, he impatiently wheeled 

 about, walked up to the left hand chain, grabbed it with his 

 trunk, slipped the ring over one of his tusks, then inclined his 

 head downward and with an irritated tug pulled the door shut 

 with a spiteful slam. 



