VI ANIMAL TRAINING AND INTELLIGENCE 1 69 



The instant the platform rests they leap off, rush 

 over to the palisade, and follow one another around 

 it in a swift, creeping trot, seeking some outlet, and 

 now and then pausing with upraised heads to gaze 

 through the thick bars or to examine whether it 

 may be possible to leap over that bristling hedge. 

 This is their first, natural, invariable behavior — 

 their march of display, like the grand procession 

 that begins the circus. Not until it has been done, 

 not until they have let themselves be seen as they 

 might look when stealing through the twilight of 

 the desert, not until they have again satisfied them- 

 selves that they cannot escape, do the trainers 

 crack their whips, call them by name, and put the 

 huge beasts clustering about their feet through the 

 leapings, groupings, and various familiar tricks 

 they have been instructed in. When the pro- 

 gramme has been finished the lions return to the 

 platform and sink out of sight. 



The same thing has been seen more lately in 

 the United States, except that the dramatic en- 

 trance upon a rising platform was dispensed with, 

 and the brutes came bounding into the arena 

 through a side door in the palisade. 



Trained elephants probably come next to these 

 great cats in popular esteem ; but none of their 

 show tricks, in my opinion, evince their sagacity 

 as well as the feats they do in the Orient for some 

 useful purpose, under the tutelage of the native 

 mahouts, especially in moving and piling timber. 



