74 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



animals he recognised the escaped elephant an idea ridiculed by 

 his comrades he called his lost charge by its name. The animal 

 at once came close to the barrier, and on the keeper proceeding into 

 the enclosure and commanding it to lie down, the elephant obeyed, 

 and the man led his former charge triumphantly forth from amongst 

 its wild companions. But the memory of kindnesses is equalled in 

 the elephant by that which recalls acts of injury to remembrance. 

 The well-known story of the Indian elephant which, on being pricked 

 by a native tailor near whose stall it had wandered, returned and 

 deluged the man with a shower-bath of dirty water, finds many 

 parallels in the history of elephant character. An elephant which 

 was kept at Versailles by Loiiis XIV., was in the habit of revenging 

 himself for affronts and injuries. A man who, feigning to throw 

 something into his mouth, disappointed him, was beaten to the 

 ground with the trunk and trampled upon. On a painter desiring 

 to sketch this elephant with trunk erect and mouth open, his servant 

 was instructed to feed the elephant for the purpose of inducing the 

 animal to assume the desired attitude. But the supply of food 

 falling short and elephantine chagrin being aroused, the elephant 

 drawing up water into his trunk, coolly showered it down upon the 

 unfortunate painter and his sketch, drenching the one, and rendering 

 the other useless. 



The pugnacity of the elephant is very great, and the determina- 

 tion with which contests are carried on between these animals is 

 highly remarkable. Mr. Darwin, on the authority of the late Dr. 

 Falconer, tells us that the Indian species fights in varied fashions, 

 determined by the position and curvature of his tusks. "When they 

 are directed forwards and upwards, he is able to fling a tiger to a 

 great distance it is said to even thirty feet ; when they are short 

 and turned downwards, he endeavours suddenly to pin the tiger to 

 the ground, and, in consequence, is dangerous to the rider, who is 

 liable to be jerked off the howdah " for it is on 



Elephants endors'd with towers, 



as Milton has it, that the great carnivore of India is hunted. 



A most remarkable trait of elephant existence, and one which 

 parallels the proverbial "red rag" and bovine fury, is the apparent ani 

 mosity of the race to white colour. Sir Samuel Baker says that both 

 the African elephant and the rhinoceros attack grey or white horses 

 with fury. The explanation of such traits of character probably lies 

 hidden in that philosophy of colour in relation to sex and animal 

 development which the researches of Darwin and others have so far 

 unravelled. 



As a final observation regarding the psychology of the elephant, 

 Mr. Darwin's statements concerning the "weeping" of these animals 



