Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-11-14

over the unfortunate customers face.
Two-foot pasteboard in trunk,
he makes passes across the customers
face. wipes off the suds with towel
big as bedsheet. and pockets tip
big as pieplate for his services.
1t is tedious and difficult task to
teach these tricks, as is illustrated by
the act of the famous bowling ele- e
plants originated by Barlow. ~
The bowling elephants consist of
three members bowler, pinboy, T..
and scorer,-the bowler curling the NJ
tip of his trunk round fifteen-pound W
ball and knocking down tenpins, y
which the pinboy sets back into place, Y.
while the scorer, grasping stick of ~
chalk in the end of his trunk, stands
in front of blackboard and unfail-
ingly marks down the exact number -
of pins the bowler has found. 4
To teach the pinboy to reach forth
with his gigantic arm and pick up the NJ
pins and set these on the exact spots ~
marked at the end of the alley, was
no difficult matter, considering the
remarkable geometric sense of these
creatures, which know enough to pile
lumber so straight and SO neatly that
not a plank protrudes SO little as an
inch beyond the heap Similarly.
after teaching the elephant that 1t
was to hold to the chalk, it was a
simple matter to grasp its trunk and
teach it to draw vertical lines side by side on
straight lines upon receiving cue, and to con-
tinue this until cued to stop.
Tom the Bowler
THE chief difficulty came when teaching the
= bowler. For some reason, Tom, the most
intelligent elephant in the group, could not be
aroused to enthusiasm over the job of grasping
the ball. Again and again his trainer picked
this up and curled the tip of the big fellows
trunk about it in an effort to get him to keep
hold; but that trunk, so wonderfully clever
that it could have picked pin off the floor,
remained so awkward that not even for Sec
ond could it retain its hold. 1t was simply
matter of self willed child and parent, and
with the patience of father teaching his little
son the trainer persisted, picking up the ball
and placing it in the trunk at low estimate
more than five thousand times before at last
came encouragement.
Then the beast grasped the ball, whirled his
trunk with a lightning quick sweep, and sent
the ball through the roof of the barn like shot
out of a gun. For the first time, for that piece
of trickery Tom felt the trainers hook fasten
across an ear, and the great head came down
with a scalp raising trumpet of submission.
The trainers troubles, however, had only be-
gun; for Judy the pinboy saw and found use
for the stupid pins in front of her and gleefully
hurled these one after another against the side
of the elephant barn.
1t seemed for time as if the class must
break up in riot for after this first experience
pepper the barn; but in the end the trainer
overcame this by fastening sole leather belts
round roots of trunks and leading these through
the fore legs to enormous surcingles, thus form
ing martingales which restricted the freedom
of trunks for artillery purposes but permitted
ample play for the work in hand.
Then, grasping Toms trunk as this enclrced
the ball. the trainer swayed the huge member
back and forth in vertical plane between the
fore legs releasing the ball when it had sufficient
momentum. From the first time the pins went
crashing in a heap. tn, elephant understood
and became a willing pupil even the pinboy
enjoying the confusion and the racket OF the
crashing pins and in less than three days the
difficult trick was learned.
Balancing Tricks
A MOTHER class of feats are the so called
Z = balancing tricks" the most difficult OF all
to teach; for no animal in existence IS SO tImld
as the elephant when it comes to risking fall.
Even in the wild state, the one dread of these
animals is to fall and no thicket no brush
heap is ever entered before the wonderful
trunk, which is eyes and nose and weapon and
hand to the beast, has made its examination.
How to overcome this Unborn timidity IS the
first problem confronting a trainer
when he wants to break his animals
Il IL. A. I1%