Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1896-04-01
ELEPHANT FICTIONS.
Impossible Stories Told About
the Animals Memory.
His SAgscity Is Greatly Exaggerated, Says
Prof. Lockhart-He Is, However, .
Good-Nstured Beast II Prop
erly Treated.

crly Ireated
Errors and extravagances-Orien
classic, medieval and modern supersti-
tion-cluster about my lord the ele-
phant," as he is called in India. There
is hardly an animal about which so
many fictions exist or which is SO little
understood.
The popular opinion is that the ele-
plants memory is as retentive as
mans. Stories are constantly floating
about to this effect. The last one met
with asserted that an elephant had
killed a man who, 20 years before, when
a small boy, had given him a piece of to-
bacco, or had in some way maltreated
him. Of course this story is preposter-
Gus. In the first place most elephants
love tobacco, and instead of killing a
man for giving him a chew, he would be
most likely to trumpet welcome and
caress him every time he presented HIM
self. But as to his remembering any
body for 20 years or 20 months even. 1t
is sheer nonsense. There is hardly an
animal whose memory is so capricious.
An equally unaccountable fiction is
that there recurs period each year
when gland swells on each side of the
animals head about six inches back of
the eyes, and which emits watery dis
charge of unpleasant odor. At such
times the elephant is supposed to be
very dangerous creature. AS l never
knew an elephant to be especially disa-
greeable when he had cold in his head.
l am inclined to class this with the
other ridiculous and absurd yarns SO
often repeated.
1t is commonly supposed that the
elephant is unable to give definite ex
preston to his feelings. This is a mis-
take. He always expresses his pleasure
in one way, by blowing through his
trunk. The noise made is exceedingly
shrill. When in want, he expresses it
in a low note made by the mouth, and
when in anger or when in a revengeful
mood, he makes terrific roar with his
threat, which sounds like distant thun-
der. He never mixes these sounds;
they always stand for definite states of
feeling, and are as well understood by
the trainer rs are the deep, slow-drawn
and far resounding snores heard at
midnight in the elephants stable.
The elephants wisdom has SO often
been extolled that "sagacious as an ele-
plant" has passed into an axiom. In
point of fact an animal will cross a rot
ten bridge full of holesifyou will permit
him to do SO. Even in his wild state,
though possessed of proboscis which
is capable of guarding it against such
dangers, the elephant readily falls into
pits dug to receive it, which are only
covered with few sticks and leaves.
Its fellows make no effort in general
to assist the fallen, as they might easily
do by kicking in the earth around the
edge. but fly in terror. 1t commonly
happens that young elephant tumbles
into 4 pit, near which its mother will
remain until the hunters come, without
doing anything to help it - not even
feeding it by throwing in few branch
es. Whole herds of elephants are led
into Enclosures which they could break
through as easily as il they were made
of cornstalks, and which no other ami
NAL would enter; and single ones are
caught by their hind legs being tied to-
gether by men under cover of tame ele
plants. Animals that happen to escape
are captured again without trouble;
even experience will not bring them
wisdom. | do not think that | traduce
the elephant when 1 say that it is, in
many things, a stupid animal
Regarding an elephant being unable
10 with hic 10 faQl,
ings of affection, fear, desire, l think
all those who have seen Boney simulate
| drunkenness at Proctor's pleasure pal
ace. in the pantomime, "From Cafe to
Police Station" will readily acknowl-
| edge this error. 1t is really wonderful
ho,, much facial expression an ele-
plant really has-with n face skeleton
so imperfect; that is to say, its nasal
bones are rudimentary, while the
mouth, all of the lower half of the face,
is concealed beneath great muscles at
tached to the base of the trunk. But in
spite of that, and with his ears I'M
cooked and his proboscis pendant, an
elephants countenance is full of char
| acter.
The truth about the elephant is that,
treated kindly and considerably, he is
n great. good-natured beast, who, for
his master, will perform any possibele
labor or feat. They are very affection
ate and exceedingly jealous of atten-
tions from their master. There are
rogue" elephants, of course, but they
ere seldom met with except in large
herds. and where attendants do not un-
derstand how to treat the brutes in
their charge.-N. Y. Journal.