1 66 Anecdotal Natural History. 



or scolded him. Yet, he would obey the lifting of 

 my finger, or the glance of my eye, and the very idea 

 of incurring my displeasure was unendurable torment 

 to him. 



All servants of the pen must of necessity be so 

 absorbed in the evolution of ideas and the balance of 

 sentences, that they are unconscious of time, space, 

 hunger, thirst, cold, or other material conditions. 



It has happened that while I have been thus 

 absorbed, Apollo has tried to attract my attention, 

 and in failing, has taken it into his loving brain that 

 he must have offended me in some way. On such 

 occasions he grovelled on the floor, he whined, he 

 licked my hand, and lay in abject despair until again 

 noticed. 



So it is with elephants. There are not two ele- 

 phants with precisely the same disposition, and the 

 best keepers are those who try to find out the 

 peculiar disposition of the creatures under their care, 

 and to treat them in accordance with that disposition. 



As elephants, like falcons, are seldom bred in 

 captivity, but are captured when wild, it necessarily 

 follows that the first lesson they must learn is to fear 

 man, and to realize the strange fact that he is their 

 master. 



It is a remarkable fact that there is no task which 

 tame elephants undertake so willingly as that of 

 capturing their wild relatives. They seem to enjoy it 

 with all their hearts; and both sexes are equally keen 

 at the sport, the females acting as decoys, and the 

 males as the representatives of force. 



Supposing that a male has to be captured, two 

 female "koomkies," as these decoys are called, 

 saunter leisurely along, and soon make the acquaint- 

 ance of the victim. Each has her keeper, or "mahout," 

 on her back, and it is a curious fact that an elephant 



