The Elephant 61 



Often among the bewildered and panic-stricken crowd 

 within a corral some animal is so dangerous that it has to 

 be shot ; the majority, however, soon grow calmer, and 

 then comes the task of securing those which it is desirable 

 to keep. When these are males, the procedure is as fol- 

 lows : An experienced female is introduced ; she marches 

 up to the tusker, and very shortly all sense of his situa- 

 tion vanishes from his "half-human mind." The fasci- 

 nating creature who is made to cajole him has a man on 

 her neck whose voice and motions direct her in everything 

 she does ; but that circumstance, which might undoubtedly 

 be supposed to attract the captive's attention, is entirely 

 overlooked, and when, either by herself or with the assist- 

 ance of another Delilah, she has backed her Samson up 

 against a tree, two or three other men who have been 

 riding on her back, but whom he has not noticed, slip 

 down and make him fast. As has been said, after a few 

 fits of hysterics, his resistance is at an end ; the monarch 

 of the forest is tamed, and considering what has been 

 written about elephants, it is indeed surprising that no 

 one has reported the precise course of thought that pro- 

 duced his resignation. To express this change in the 

 felicitous language of Professor Romanes, the elephant 

 has experienced "a transformation of emotional psychol- 

 ogy." That is to say, a being which has heretofore been 

 nothing but an unreclaimed wild beast, is by the simple 

 process of being frightened, deceived, abused, and en- 

 slaved, at once converted into one of the chief ornaments 

 of animated nature ! 



The question arises as one ponders upon statements 



