408 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
veracity, 9 of an elephant in India which the keeper was in 
the habit of leaving to play the part of nurse to his child 
when he and his wife had occasion to go away from home. 
The. elephant was chained up, and whenever the child in 
its creeping about came to the end of the elephant’s 
tether, he used gently to draw it back again with his 
trunk. 
In 6 Nature, 9 vol. xix., p. 385, Mr. J. J. Furniss 
writes : — 
In Central Park one very hot day my attention was drawn 
to the conduct of an elephant which had been placed in an 
enclosure in the open air. On the ground was a large heap of 
newly-mown grass, which the sagacious aniuial was taking up by 
the trunkful, and laying carefully upon his sun -heated back. He 
continued the operation until his back was completely thatched , 
when he remained quiet, apparently enjoying the result of his 
ingenuity. 
Mr. Furniss in a later communication (vol. xx., p. 21) 
continues : — 
Since the publication of my former letter (as above), I 
have received additional data bearing on the subject from Mr. 
W. A. Conklin, the superintendent of the Central Park 
Menagerie. I am informed by him that he has frequently 
observed elephants, when out of doors in the hot sunshine, 
thatch their backs with hay or grass; that they do so to a 
certain extent when under cover in the summer time, and when 
the hies which then attack the animals, often so fiercely as to 
draw blood, are particularly numerous ; but that they never 
attempt to thatch their backs in winter. This seems to prove 
that they act intelligently for the attainment of a definite end. 
It would be interesting to learn whether elephants in their 
wild state are in the habit of so thatching their backs. It 
seems more probable to suppose that in their native wilds they 
would avail themselves of the natural shade afforded by the 
jungle, and that the habit is one which has been developed 
in consequence of their changed surroundings in captivity. 
Mr. Gr. E. Peal writes to 6 Nature 9 (vol. xxi., p. 34) : — 
One evening, soon after my arrival in Eastern Assam, and 
while the five elephants were as usual being fed opposite the 
bungalow, I observed a young and lately caught one step up to 
a bamboo-stake fence, and quietly pull one of the stakes up. 
