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

If dogs are naturally superior to elephants in natural intellect, it should be as easy to tame and educate newly-caught wild dogs or wolves of mature age, as newly-caught elephants. But, so far from this being the case, it is safe to assert that it would be impossible to train even the most intelligent company of pointers, setters or collies ever got together to perform the feats accomplished with such promptness and accuracy by all regularly trained work elephants. The successful training of all elephants up to the required working point is so fully conceded in India that the market value of an animal depends wholly upon its age, sex, build and the presence or absence of good tusks. The animal's education is either sufficient for the buyer, or, if it is not, he knows it can be made so. Promptness and Accuracy in the Execution of Man's Orders. This is the fourth quality which serves as a key to the mental capacity and mental processes of an animal. To me the most impressive feature of a performance of elephants in the circus-ring is the fact that every command uttered is obeyed with true military promptness and freedom from hesitation, and so accurately that an entire performance often is conducted and concluded without the repetition of a single command. One by one the orders are executed with the most human-like precision and steadiness, amounting sometimes to actual nonchalance. Human beings of the highest type scarcely could do better. To some savage races--for example, the native Australians, the Veddahs of Ceylon, or the Jackoons of the Malay Peninsula, I believe that such a performance would be impossible, even under training. I do not believe their minds act with sufficient rapidity and accuracy to enable a company of them to go through with such a wholly artificial performance as successfully as the elephants do.