120 THE ART OF TRAINING ANIMALS. 



elephant that he had slightly wounded. Seizing him near the 

 dry bed of a river, the animal had his fore-foot already raised 

 to crush him J but its forehead being touched at the same 

 instant by the tendrils of a climbing plant which had suspended 

 itself from the branches above, it suddenly turned and fled, 

 leaving him bodily hurt, but with no limbs broken." 



Elephants seldom use their tusks as weapons unless they have 

 been trained to do so j their vertical position, ane the structure 

 of the neck preventing their being effective unless the object of 

 attack being directly below them. The stories told of the 

 execution of criminals by elephants when Ceylon was under the 

 rule of native kings, generally describe the elephant as killing 

 the victim by running its tusks through bis body. An eye 

 witness of one of these executions, however, says the animal 

 never used his tusks at all, but placed his foot upon the pros- 

 trate man and tore off his limbs in succession by a sudden 

 movement of the trunk. Hunters have frequently described 

 their escape from elephants when the latter might easily have 

 killed them by a thrust of their tusks, but apparently did not 

 even know how to use them for that purpose. 



The elephaot's dependence is really upon his trunk and his 

 ponderous feet. It is related that in an encounter between two 

 elephants, one a tusker and the other without tusks, the latter 

 proved the victor, breaking off one of the former's tusks with 

 his trunk. 



PERFORMING ELEPHANTS. 



From very early times elephants have not only been used in 

 war, in industrial pursuits, and to add to the pomp and display 

 of powerful rulers, but ages ago they were made to amuse the 

 multitude by performances not very dissimilar to those witnessed 

 in our modern circuses. An old Roman writer describes a 

 number of elephants exhibited in Rome by a nephew of the 

 emperor Tiberius, who were taught " to twist their limbs and to 

 bend them like a stage dancer," — Roman stage dancers could 

 not have been remarkable for grace or agility we should fancy — 

 ^* the whole troop came forward from this and that side of the 

 theater, and divided themselves into parties ; they advanced 

 walking with a mincing gait, and exhibiting in their whole bodies 

 and persons the manners of a beau, clothed in the flowery dres- 

 ses of dancers ; and on the ballet master giving a signal with 

 his voice they fell into line and went round in a circle, and if it 

 were necessary to display they did so. They ornamented the 

 floor of the stage by throwing flowers upon it, and beat a mea- 

 sure with their feet and keep time together." Another feature 



