THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT 153 



owners of African elephants can scarcely be set against 

 the opinion of Mr Hagenbeck, because the purposes 

 for which the African species is needed in Europe 

 are not those of the beast of burden. The European 

 < elephant herd ' is, generally speaking, the property 

 of the large circus owners ; and these prefer the Indian 

 elephant, which they allege to be more docile, and 

 more reliable for their purposes, than the African 

 species. The trainers say that the latter have bad 

 memories, and that this makes them uncertain per- 

 formers in the ring. They will learn a few tricks 

 without difficulty ; but when called upon to perform 

 in public, they sometimes seem to forget their accom- 

 plishments, and either stand still or bolt to their 

 stables. It has been recently pointed out that this 

 lack of memory, or perhaps of brain-power, in the 

 African, when compared with the Indian species, may 

 possibly be accounted for by the descent of the former 

 from the mastodon, an earlier extinct type than the 

 mammoth. The teeth of the African elephant corre- 

 spond with those of the mastodon, while in the Indian 

 elephant they are analogous to those of the more 

 recent mammoth. When kept in England the African 

 seems to have less respect for c humans ' than the 

 Asiatic, and is less trusted by its keepers, who seem 

 to look upon it as unsafe. But this is only a 

 comparative estimate of a creature judged by the 



