The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

"Its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond its daily experience it evinces no special discernment." To me it seems that all three of those opinions are off the target. The dog is not a wild, untrammeled animal; and neither dogs, cats nor savage men evince any special discernment "beyond the range of their daily experience." Moreover, there are some millions of tame men of whom the same may be said with entire safety. Very often the question is asked: "Is the African elephant equal in intelligence and training capacity to the Indian species?" To this we must answer: Not proven. We do not know. The African species never has been tried out on the same long and wide basis as the Indian. Many individual African elephants, very intelligent, have been trained, successfully, and have given good accounts of themselves. For my own part I am absolutely sure that when taken in hand at the same age, and trained on the same basis as the Indian species, the African elephant will be found mentally quite the equal of the Indian, and just as available for work or performances. No negro tribe really likes to handle elephants and train them. The Indian native loves elephants, and enjoys training them and working with them. It is these two conditions that have left the African elephant far behind the procession. The African elephant belongs to the great Undeveloped Continent. He has been, and he still is, mercilessly pursued and slaughtered for his tusks. All the existing species of African elephants are going down and out before the ivory hunters. We fear that they will all be dead one hundred years from this time, or even less. A century hence, when the last africanus has gone to join the mammoth and the mastodon, his well protected wild congener in India still will be devouring his four hundred pounds of green fodder per day, and the tame ones will be performing to amuse the swarming human millions of this overcrowded world.