ELEPHANT HUNTING, ETC. 193 



Aristotle, who very probably secured his information 

 through the good offices of his royal pupil Alexander the 

 Great, gives certain details regarding elephant hunting, 

 which appears to have been carried on in the India of three 

 centuries before Christ much in the same way as in our own 

 day. He says that the elephant hunters were mounted 

 on tamed elephants of proved courage. When they came 

 up with their untamed brothers they belaboured these lustily 



Heads of Socrates and Zanthippe, and of Anytus and Melitus, combined with head 

 and trunk of elephant. The connection with Socrates is obscure, but it has been con- 

 jectured that some analogy was seen between the ungainly form and the supposed virtues 

 of the elephant, and the ugly face but supreme excellence of the philosopher 



— From Kuypert's "De elephantis in nummis obviis," Hagse Comitum, 1719. 



with trunks and tusks until they were completely subdued. 

 When this task had been accomplished, some of the hunters 

 got on the backs of the vanquished animals and were able 

 to control their movements by the use of goads. Aristotle's 

 informants assured him that as long as the mahouts sat 

 upon the elephants they were docile and obedient, but some 

 of them became wild again when they were riderless. As a 

 punishment these had their forefeet bound together so that 

 they could scarcely move.* 



While Alexander himself, who is said to have been very 

 skeptical as to the warlike qualities of the elephant, made 



*Aristotelis, "Historia animalium," Lib. IV, cap. 9. 



