CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 65 



to be caught in keddahs or pitfalls. Yet even 

 men occasionally fall into the latter, and I 

 imagine that, in elephants as in ourselves, 

 there are differences and that one may be 

 more intelligent than its fellows. Two of the 

 most striking proofs of the cleverness of some 

 elephants that I remember reading were com- 

 municated to the Field by Mr. C. W. A. Bruce, 

 a Forest Officer in Burma. Mr. Bruce often 

 watched one of them break off a branch and 

 use it in its trunk to scratch some part of its 

 back or sides otherwise out of reach. Still 

 more remarkable was the behaviour of a run- 

 away female that escaped, dragging her chain. 

 No sooner did her attendant give chase than 

 she promptly seized the loose end of the chain 

 in her trunk, clearly with the twofold object of 

 saving herself from tripping over it and of pre- 

 venting the man from catching hold of it. It 

 is impossible to attribute any less intelligent 

 reason to her action, and, if this was not clever, 

 I should like to know what is. 



I am much indebted to that distinguished 

 sportsman, Sir William Lee- Warner, G.C.S.I., 

 for the following interesting notes on sagacity 

 and memory in elephants. After reading what 

 he has to say, it is not easy to entertain any 

 reasonable doubt of the cleverness which these 

 animals sometimes display, and if, on other 

 occasions, they seem to fall short of what we 



