540 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
tive elephants refuse to lift their front feet so that they can be noosed, the 
decoys will risk their own safety in attempting the enterprise, sometimes hold¬ 
ing up the foot by putting their own leg under the great weight. The elephants 
trained as lumbermen have the weakness of other slaves who receive for their 
hard labor “more kicks than pence.” If not kept in sight the elephant will 
quit work and use “his master’s time” in the lounging which he enjoys. An 
example of the politeness of which an elephant is capable, is furnished by the 
case of one found carrying an ebony log through the jungle to its master’s 
lumber pile. Meeting a mounted traveller where the jungle was thick and the 
road narrow, it threw down its load and backed itself into the thorns, uttering 
a sound as if to say “After you, your honor.” The traveller not being quick 
to take the hint, and to accept the civility, the elephant repeated its salute and 
its retiring again and again, until at last the rider passed by, when it returned 
to the road, picked up its burden and resumed the drudgery of life. I have 
spoken of the extreme delicacy as well as the power of an elephant’s trunk. 
This is well illustrated when the elephant is allowed to pluck a fan, and to 
use its long handled brush in keeping itself free from flies. The lightness and 
grace of its motions are then beyond those of the fairest daughters of the most 
enervating clime. An elephant will generally betray his wrong-doings by a 
certain air 
of sheep 
ishness. 
On one oc¬ 
casion the 
master 
having ar¬ 
ranged his 
oven and 
chained his 
SKELETON OE BRONTOSAURUS, FROM AMERICAN JURA. el e p h a n t , 
departed on 
some errand. As soon as he was safely out of sight, the elephant unchained 
himself, robbed the oven, and again chained himself up, being, however, unable 
to do more than to wrap the chain about his leg. The owner on his return, 
found himself dinnerless, but also found in the preternaturally innocent behavior 
of his elephant, a clue to the depredator. Of experiences in hunting there 
is no lack. A hunter was saved by falling from his horse, after which the 
-elephant continued to charge in entire disregard of the man over whose body 
it passed without doing him any further injury than that of paralyzing him 
with fear, and forcing him to conclude, measurements to the contrary not¬ 
withstanding, that the mammoth must have had a successor in the mountain 
of flesh, which, for a few moments, loomed above him. 
It is among the singular facts in elephant lore, that while the forehead is 
the vulnerable spot of the Asiatic species the heaviest balls do not seem fatal 
if fired into the forehead of the African elephant. Sir Samuel Baker relates 
that he fired three heavy bullets into the forehead of an African elephant, 
and that though the three wounds were within the space of three 
inches, they apparently were harmless. The native aggageers, when 
hunting the elephant, hamstring it, if it be awake, and cut off its trunk, if it 
