12 AUGUST 1922, Page 3

In the Observer the elephantine psycho-analyst enumerated some requirements of

the "compleat elephant trainer":— "You must be gentle and faithful and tender to your elephant. Above all, you must -have a very great deal of patience ; you must love your elephant even more than you love yourself; and be careful to see that you do not take your food before he has his."

Elephant trainers must be ideal husbands. The mahout went on to say:— "If there are two elephants being trained together, one still rather wild, and the other getting on terms of affection with his master, the better trained of the two will see that no harm comes to him through the tempestuous temper of the

other."

That, we think, is worthy of the Jungle Books, or is it that the Jungle Books were worthy of their subject ?