180 Anecdotal Natural History. 



work of a few days, the rest of the animal's life 

 in the Zoological Gardens not exciting the least 

 enthusiasm in the public mind, even among those 

 who had ridden on his back when boys and girls, and 

 had in after years lifted their own children into the 

 familiar howdah. 



Yet to all naturalists the years in which he passed 

 from infancy to adult age were full of interest, and to 

 none more so than to myself. 



Some twenty-five years ago I stated (" Illustrated 

 Nat. Hist.," L, p. 739) that I believed the African 

 elephant to be quite as well fitted for the service of 

 man, and that the reason why it was not captured 

 and tamed might be found in the inferiority of the 

 negro race when compared to the Aryan. Many of 

 the elephants which were employed in the days of 

 ancient history were undoubtedly of the African 

 species, as were those highly-accomplished animals 

 which are stated to have walked along a set of ropes, 

 carrying a companion in a litter. 



That an African elephant should be brought to 

 England was an epoch in Zoology, especially as the 

 animal was very young, and might therefore be 

 expected to live sufficiently long to enable its dis- 

 position to be carefully studied. He was then scarcely 

 as large as an ordinary Shetland pony, and, up to 

 the present time, when he is eleven feet in height 

 at the shoulder, and weighs some seven tons, he has 

 proved quite as gentle and docile as any of the Indian 

 animals. His compatriot "Alice" has also proved 

 herself as intelligent and capable of subjection to 

 man as either of the two Indian elephants. 



Yet the art of elephant taming has not been 

 practised in Africa for many centuries. The natives 

 can kill them by catching them in pitfalls, or by the 

 " drop-trap," i.e., a device by which a log of wood, 



