42 Wild Beasts 



properly so called, is seldom met with, though the solitary 

 bull, the same animal in an earlier stage, is common enough." 



Drummond, it will be observed, clings to the superstition 

 of man's recognized primacy in nature ; and if he had de- 

 clared that his appointment to this position was handed 

 down by tradition among elephants from the time of Adam 

 and the garden of Eden, the absurdity could scarcely be 

 greater. In what possible way can a wild beast that has 

 not been hunted know anything about a man, except that 

 he is an unaccountable-looking little creature, who walks 

 like a bird, and has a very singular odor ? 



A rogue who infested the Balaghat District is described 

 by Baker as a captured elephant who after a considerable 

 detention escaped to the forest again. " Domestication," 

 he remarks, " seems to have sharpened its intellect and 

 exaggerated its powers of mischief and cunning. . . . 

 There was an actual love of homicide in this animal." He 

 continually changed place, so that no one could foretell his 

 whereabouts, and approached those whom he intended to 

 destroy with such fatal skill that they never suspected his 

 presence until it was too late. He made the public roads 

 impassable. By day and night the inhabitants of villages 

 lying far apart heard the screams which accompanied his 

 attack, and immediately this monster was in the midst of 

 them, killing men, women, and children. At length Colonel 

 Bloomfield, aided by the whole population, succeeded in 

 hunting the beast down. " Maddened by pursuit and 

 wounds, he turned to charge," and as he lowered his trunk 

 when closing, a heavy rifle ball struck him in the depres- 

 sion just above its base, and he fel) dead. 



