THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 168 



happened to Alice, the African elephant, on Bank Holiday, 

 August 2, 1875. On the Occurrence Sheet, under the heading 

 *' Animals Unwell," it is thus recorded : 



The female African elephant was chained by the leg as usual this 

 morning, and about 8.50 am. she made a loud noise, and upon the man 

 going to her it was found she had torn off the end of her trunk ; the 

 wound was bleeding, but soon stopped. She would not allow it to be 

 touched, and she seemed in great pain, twisting about in the wildest 

 manner. 



Public attention was called to the unfortunate affair by a 

 letter signed "A Fellow," which appeared in the Daily 

 Telegraph of August 4. After a general indictment — far too 

 sweeping to be well founded — the writer stated that there had 

 recently been a change of keepers in the elephant house, and 

 the new men thought that Alice was not sufficiently broken 

 in. " Accordingly they set to work to break her in after their 

 own fashion. On Monday morning last they tied her up with 

 ropes and left her. Soon a terrible screaming and trumpeting 

 was heard, and it was discovered that — somehow or other — 

 Alice's trunk was torn off." 



The following comment appeared in a leading article on 

 Friday morning : 



Our correspondent writes guardedly, but he obviously wishes the public 

 to infer that the elephant had been tied up by her trunk to the bars of her 

 cage ; and it is certainly hard to see how the accident could have happened 

 in any other way. 



Coincidently with this the following paragraph appeared 

 in the Times. It is apparently intended to be an explanation, 

 for it gives details not supplied on the Occurrence Sheet or in 

 Bartlett's book^: 



The female African elephant, being very fidgety and restless, is 

 usually tethered by a ring round one of her fore feet to the corner of her 

 stall while the house is being cleaned out in the morning. On Monday, 

 about half-past 8 a.m., the keepers were alarmed by the elephant calling 

 out suddenly as if in great pain, and on running to the spot found that she 

 had actually torn off the top of her trunk. It seems that she had thrust 

 the end of her trunk underneath the ring by which her foot was confined, 

 and then by pulling against the ring with her foot hurt her trunk. This 

 caused her to exert such force in the attempt to withdraw her trunk that 



* " Wild Animals in Captivity," pp. 51-3. 



