THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 1 5 1 



he has for many years been at the head of the wild 

 beast trade, both in Europe and America, and that 

 he is not only the owner of the largest menageries 

 in the world, with trading-camps on the outskirts of 

 civilisation in three continents, but a very practical 

 and successful man of business. Mr Hagenbeck's 

 paper took the form of a plea for the preservation 

 of the African elephant. But with him preservation 

 is merely the necessary preliminary to their re- 

 domestication, for the probable success in which he 

 gives reasons which should be very encouraging to 

 those now pledged to the undertaking. Mr Hagenbeck 

 writes with authority on the subject. Out of two 

 hundred African elephants brought to Europe in 

 recent years he has imported one hundred and seventy, 

 and many of these have remained in his Zoological 

 Gardens at Hamburg and in America. With the 

 histories of the rest since they passed into other 

 hands he is perfectly familiar. He was recently able 

 to tell the present writer the exact number of African 

 Elephants, and the owner of each in the different 

 countries of Europe ; and he has a natural insight 

 into the ways and means of animal domestication. 

 He gives it as his opinion that the general belief 

 that 'African elephants are not so strong as are 

 wilder and less easily tamed, and possess less endurance 

 than the Indian species, is wrong.' He maintains, 



