ELEPHANTS.
IT is possible, and even probable, that persons now living may see the extinction of the elephant as a wild animal. The operation of natural causes has already reduced the many species which once existed on the earth to two, and to these two the demands of human luxury will probably before long prove fatal. It is not, indeed, the vanity of man—or, rather, woman —deadly to so many of the fairest things in creation, that threatens the existence of the elephant, but a more solid, and perhaps more reasonable, cause. The things which he perishes to furnish would be called objects of utility rather than of orna- ment. It is our table-knives, so rapidly worn out in handle as well as blade, that destroy him. One firm of English cutlers, we believe, takes nearly three-fourths of the African supply ; and it is from Africa, where both the male and female animal are heavily tusked, that most of our ivory comes. It has been cal- culated that at least a hundred thousand elephants are annually sacrificed for their tusks. Year by year the wild animal is driven into narrower limits by the incessant pursuit of the hunter, and the day cannot be very distant when be will perish alto- gether. Possibly the tuskless animal of Ceylon, which offers no such temptation, and which it would be easy to protect—if it is not already protected—against the sportsman, will continue to prolong the race; but the extent of Ceylon is comparatively small, and its elephant-herds are already largely drawn upon to keep up the supply of the domesticated animal. For though the elephant sometimes breeds in captivity, this occurrence is so rare that it cannot be relied upon for preserving the stock. Consequently, the extinction of the wild animal implies that within no long period of time the species will altogether cease to exist.
When this shall happen, the world will have lost what may fairly be reckoned—when its dignity and majestic strength are considered, as well as its sagacity and moral development—the noblest animal after man. We speak pace the admirers of the dog ; but the dog, as obviously the satellite of man, is wanting in the essential quality of dignity. What dog, too, could have stirred a whole nation as ' Jumbo ' did in his life and death ? The demonstrations of the sentiment were often extrava- gantly absurd; but the animal which made them possible must be allowed to stand very high in the scale of creation.
The ancients, who are sparing in their praises of the dog (by far the larger part of the world has always abhorred him as the very type of uncleanness), could not speak too highly of the elephant. The elder Pliny, who was a diligent collector of anec- dotes rather than an observer, surpasses himself when he treats of this animal. He places him as unquestionably next to man. Intelligence, obedience, memory, ambition, affection, honesty, prudence, and justice are among the catalogue of virtues which he ascribes to these creatures. He even declares that they are religious, worshipping the stars, the sun, and the moon, an assertion in which he is followed by Plutarch and /Elian. The stories which he tells of their sagacity, and aptitude for acquiring accomplishments, are marvellous. That they should go through the motions of a dance or a gladiatorial combat, is credible. Busbecq tells us of one which he himself saw in Turkey that danced and played at ball. But our faith is taxed when we read of four elephants walking on tight-ropes carrying another in a litter. Yet the testimony of the ancients as to this particular accomplishment is very strong. Possibly the funambilism of elephants is one of the lost arts of antiquity. Writing also is an accomplishment which, we fear, the animal no longer acquires. aincianus, the friend of Yespasian, knew of an animal which could write a Greek hexa- meter, not, however, out of its own head ; and we have apathetic story of one which, having been beaten for being somewhat backward in its reading—for the elephants own the human trait of having dunces among them—was found diligently conning its task by night. It was, however, in a sterner character than that of dancer or scholar that antiquity best knew the elephant. He was a most formidable implement of war. The Carthaginians were the first so to utilise him in European warfare, and it is a remarkable fact that they, and they only, have been able to educate the African species of the race for human uses. It may be doubted, indeed, whether the military utility of the animal compensated for the enormous expense and trouble which he must have caused. If Hannibal had not lost all his elephants but one almost before he began his campaigns, he would cer- tainly have found it imposskble to feed them. Their use, indeed, in Western warfare has not been frequent. One of the latest occasions of their employment seems to have been by the Emperor Claudius, when he invaded Britain in the third year of his reign. They are still found, but for show rather than use, in the military establishments of the East. But it is clear that they could not exist in the face of arms of precision.
The practical utility of the elephant for peaceful purposes is great. Alone among animals, he may to a certain extent be trusted to labour by himself and without supervision, while his capacity as a beast of burden is such as to counterbalance the great expense of his keep. Bat it is his mental and moral development that, for our present purpose of writing, most interests us; and here, if the modern accounts can scarcely rival the old, they are still sufficiently surprising. Mr. Andrew Wilson, in his admirable "Studies of Life and Sense,"* tells us some very curious things indeed. The highly developed sagacity of the animal may, he remarks, be partly due to the long life, and con- sequently varied experience, of the individual animal ; but, on the other hand, there is the adverse influence of the fact that there can be little or no heredity in its acquirements. The dog has the inheritance of many generations. The elephant learns every- thing for himself, and should be as much at a disadvantage as a New Guinea Negro, matched with the descendant of a line of cultivated Europeans or Americans. Under these circumstances, every anecdote of his sagacity acquires a multiplied signifi- cance. The story which Mr. Wilson tells of Lizzie,' an elephant belonging to Wombwell's menagerie, is very striking. In 1874, the menagerie visited Tenbury, and • Lizzie,' who had drank a quantity of cold water when heated by walking (just as a "human" might have done), was attacked by spasms, and treated by Mr. Turley, a local chemist. He applied a large blister to the side, and relieved the pain. Five years afterwards, the menagerie came round again, and Lizzie ' recognised her medical adviser as he stood in the shop-door, stepped out of the ranks, and greeted him by placing her trunk round
s:dSibvtialof and &nee. By Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.B. London: Matto
his band. She even drew his attention to the side where the blister had been applied. Two years afterwards, the menagerie came again. This time 'Lizzie ' lifted her friend in a very gentle manner from the ground. She had, it seemed, been led to form a still higher opinion of his merits as a doctor, and even generally to prefer physic to surgery. A veterinary- surgeon had been called in to prescribe for another ailment, and had used the lancet. Accordingly, she drew Mr. Turley's attention to the limb which had been lanced, and did her best to show how much she preferred his milder treatment.
Such stories, sometimes, it must be owned, testifying to a feeling of revenge not leas enduriug than was `Lizzie's ' gratitude, might be multiplied indefinitely. They suggest a question which, standing as it does quite apart from the physiological arguments for evolution, may be worth consider- ing. If social order, morality, memory, prudence, readiness of resource (a remarkable characteristic of the elephant) are evolved out of protoplasm, and find their full development in man, how is it that each of these faculties, taken separately, seems to have had another distinct line of its own which has not ended in man ? If monkeys are next to man in the order of living things, as they are certainly likest to him in shape, should we not expect to find them living in communities, individual members of which should possess the various mental and moral qualities in a degree which should approximate to what is to be seen in man ? We see nothing of the kind. The bee and the ant have their elaborately organised commonwealths ; the dog has fidelity and, perhaps we may say, conscience; the elephant, memory and gratitude ; and other creatures, various qualities, mental and moral, in varying degrees. But the combination of these things, especially that combination of social and individual faculties which would seriously impugn man's distinctive superiority, is not to be seen.
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