THE LIVING WORLD. 
53i 
is driven, and which it is induced to enter by the Delilah-like behavior of female 
elephants trained for that service. Once in the corral, they are tempted one at a time 
by the female elephants into a smaller enclosure where they are made captive. 
When hunted for profit or pleasure, they are sometimes driven into pits floored 
with sharpened stakes; sometimes their feet are spiked, and sometimes they are 
shot. The vulnerable spot in the Asiatic elephant is the head. The elephant 
is grateful only in the sense of the cynic who defined gratitude as “a lively 
sense of favors yet to be received.” The behavior of the domesticated elephant, 
like that of some persons, is better in company than when at home. Jumbo, 
whose fame is known to. all in Great Britain or in America, was, it will be 
remembered, amiable 
to excess towards the 
outside world, and 
always tractable to 
his keepers at home. 
The oldest records 
exhibit the elephant 
as an important fea¬ 
ture of all oriental 
pageants. They ap¬ 
peared in the Roman 
triumphal processions 
at least two thousand 
years ago, and were 
used in a war against 
the Gallic tribes. 
The elephant is 
well known alike from 
accounts of travel or 
sport in the East, and 
as a popular member 
of all travelling me¬ 
nageries. It was well 
known in Egypt, and 
no one will have for¬ 
gotten its having been 
employed by the Car¬ 
thaginians, more es¬ 
pecially by Hannibal when he crossed the Alps for the invasion of Italy. 
Its average weight is from seven thousand to eight thousand pounds, and 
it can carry burdens equal to the united efforts of from seven to twenty 
yoke of oxen. Its proboscis is a combination of its nose and its upper lip, 
and is a singular illustration of adaptation to use. To insure the most perfect 
strength and flexibility, it is muscular and membranous, not cartilaginous. 
To give perfect control it has at its command not less than forty thousand 
muscles. To fit it for its many and varied functions, it has the utmost delicacy 
and the greatest toughness. To the elephant the proboscis has to serve the 
uses of the prehensile tail of the monkey tribe, the beak of the bird, the air- 
bladder of the fish, the nose of the hound, the tongue of the ant-eater, the 
HEAD OF AFRICAN ELEPHANT. 
