PUNISHMENT AND REPENTANCE. "We made one very great mistake with John. His cage was used as a punishment, with the result that we never could leave him there alone, for he would shriek all the time. . . . Now, a stick was the one thing that our gorilla would not stand from anyone, save Major Penny and myself. Presently we found out that the only way to deal with him was to tell him that he was very naughty, and push him away from us; when he would roll on the floor and cry, and be very-repentant, holding one's ankles, and putting his head on our feet.

AFFECTION FOR A CHILD. "He was especially fond of my little niece, three years old. John and she used to play together for hours, and he seemed to understand what she wanted him to do. If she ever cried, and her mother would not go and pick her up, John would always try and nip the mother, or give her a smack with the full weight of his hand, evidently thinking she was the cause of the child's tears.

A SENSE OF GOOD ORDER. "He loved to take everything out of a wastepaper basket and strew the contents all over the room, after which, when told to do so he would pick up everything and put it all back, but looking very bored all the while. If the basket was very full he would push it all down very carefully, to make room for more. He would always put things back when told to do so, such as books from a bookshelf or things from a table.



TWO CASES OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT. (1) "One day we were going out, for which I was sitting ready dressed, when John wished to sit in my lap. My sister, Mrs. Penny, said: 'Don't let him. He will spoil your dress.'

"As my dress happened to be a light one I pushed him away, and said, 'No!' He at once lay on the floor and cried just like a child, for about a minute. Then he rose, looked round the room, found a newspaper, went and picked it up, spread it on my lap and climbed up. This was quite the cleverest thing I ever saw him do. Even those who saw it said they would not have believed it had they not seen it themselves! Both my nephews, (Major Penny and Mr. E. C. Penny), his wife and my sister (Mrs. Penny) were in the room, and can testify to the correctness of the above record.

(2) "Another clever thing John did, although I suspect this was due more to instinct that to downright cleverness. A piece of filet beefsteak had just come from the butcher. Inasmuch as occasionally I gave him a small mouthful of raw beef, a small piece of the coarser part of the steak was cut off, and I gave it to him. He tasted it, then gravely handed it back to me. Then he took my hand and put it on the finer part of the meat. From that I cut off a tiny piece, gave it to him, and he ate it. When my nephew came home he wouldn't believe it, so I tried it again, with the same result, except that then he did not even attempt to eat the coarser meat."

* * * * *

Concerning Miss Cunningham's wonderful story, I wish to state that I believe all of it,—because there is no reason to do otherwise! It sets a new mark in gorilla lore, and it lifts a curtain from an animal mind that previously was unknown, and very generally misunderstood.

To the Doubting Thomases who will doubt some portions of Miss Cunningham's story, let me cite, by way of caution, the following history:

When Du Chaillu discovered the gorilla, and came to America and England with his specimens to tell about it, he said that when a big gorilla is attacked and made angry it beats its breast, repeatedly, with its clenched fists. The wiseacres of that day solemnly shook their heads and said: "Oh, no! That can not be true. No ape ever did that. He is romancing!" But now we know that this breast-beating and chest-clapping habit is to a gorilla a common-place performance, even in captivity.

Sometimes there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in all our philosophy.



XI

THE MIND OF THE ELEPHANT

It was in the jungles of the Animallai Hills of southern India that I first became impressed by the mental capacity of the Indian elephant. I saw many wild herds. I saw elephants at work, and at one period I lived in a timber camp, consisting of working elephants and mahouts. I saw a shrewd young elephant-driver soundly flogged for stealing an elephant, farming it out to a native timber contractor for four days, and then elaborately pretending that the animal had been "lost." Later on I saw elephant performances in the "Greatest Show on Earth" and elsewhere, and for eighteen years I have been chief mourner over the idiosyncrasies of Gunda and Alice. If I do not now know something about elephants, then my own case of animal intelligence is indeed hopeless.

To me it seems that the only thing necessary to establish the elephant as an animal of remarkable intellect and power of original reasoning is to set forth the unadorned facts that lie ready to hand.

Cuvier recorded the opinion that in sagacity the elephant in no way excels the dog and some other species of carnivora. Sir Emerson Tennent, even after some study of the elephant, was disposed to award the palm for intelligence to the dog, but only "from the higher degree of development consequent on his more intimate domestication and association with man." In the mind of G. P. Sanderson we fear that familiarity with the elephant bred a measure of contempt; and this seems very strange. He says:

"Its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the dog, and possibly of other animals; and in matters beyond its daily experience it evinces no special discernment."

To me it seems that all three of those opinions are off the target. The dog is not a wild, untrammeled animal; and neither dogs, cats nor savage men evince any special discernment "beyond the range of their daily experience." Moreover, there are some millions of tame men of whom the same may be said with entire safety.

Very often the question is asked: "Is the African elephant equal in intelligence and training capacity to the Indian species?"

To this we must answer: Not proven. We do not know. The African species never has been tried out on the same long and wide basis as the Indian. Many individual African elephants, very intelligent, have been trained, successfully, and have given good accounts of themselves. For my own part I am absolutely sure that when taken in hand at the same age, and trained on the same basis as the Indian species, the African elephant will be found mentally quite the equal of the Indian, and just as available for work or performances.

No negro tribe really likes to handle elephants and train them. The Indian native loves elephants, and enjoys training them and working with them. It is these two conditions that have left the African elephant far behind the procession. The African elephant belongs to the great Undeveloped Continent. He has been, and he still is, mercilessly pursued and slaughtered for his tusks. All the existing species of African elephants are going down and out before the ivory hunters. We fear that they will all be dead one hundred years from this time, or even less. A century hence, when the last africanus has gone to join the mammoth and the mastodon, his well protected wild congener in India still will be devouring his four hundred pounds of green fodder per day, and the tame ones will be performing to amuse the swarming human millions of this overcrowded world.

In the minds of our elephant keepers, familiarity with elephants has bred just the reverse of contempt. Both Thuman and Richards are quite sure that elephants are the wisest of all wild animals.

Despite the very great amount of trouble made for Keeper Thuman by Gunda, the Indian, and Kartoum, the African, Thuman grows enthusiastic over the shrewdness of their "cussedness." He is particularly impressed by their skill in opening chain shackles, and unfastening the catches and locks of doors and gates. And really, Kartoum's ingenuity in finding out how to open latches and bolts is almost inexhaustible, as well as marvelous.

Keeper Richards declares that our late African pygmy elephant, Congo, was the wisest animal he ever has known. I have elsewhere referred to his ability in shutting his outside door. Richards taught him to accept coins from visitors, deposit them in a box, then pull a cord to ring a bell, one pull for each coin represented. The keeper devised four different systems of intimate signals by which he could tell Congo to stop at the right point, and all these were so slight that no one ever detected them. One was by a voice-given cue, another by a hand motion, and a third was by an inclination of the body.

Keeper Richards relates that Congo would go out in his yard, collect a trunkful of peanuts from visitors, bring them inside and secretly cache them in a corner behind his feed box. Then he would go out for more graft peanuts, bring them in, hide them and proceed to eat the first lot. There are millions of men who do not know what it is to conserve something that can be eaten.

In this discussion of the intellectual powers and moral qualities of the elephant I will confine myself to my own observations on Elephas indicus, except where otherwise stated. A point to which we ask special attention is that in endeavoring to estimate the mental capacity of the elephant, we will base no general conclusions upon any particularly intelligent individual, as all mankind is tempted to do in discussions of the intelligence of the dog, the cat, the horse, parrot and ape. On the contrary, it is our desire to reveal the mental capacity of every elephant living, tame or wild, except the few individuals with abnormal or diseased minds. It is not to be shown how successfully an elephant has been taught by man, but how all elephants in captivity have been taught, and the mental capacity of every elephant.

Under the head of intellectual qualities we have first to consider the elephant's

POWERS OF INDEPENDENT OBSERVATIONS, AND REASONING FROM CAUSE TO EFFECT

While many wonderful stories are related of the elephant's sagacity and independent powers of reasoning, it must be admitted that a greater number of more wonderful anecdotes are told on equally good authority of dogs. But the circumstances in the case are wholly to the advantage of the universal dog, and against the rarely seen elephant. While the former roams at will through his master's premises, through town and country, mingling freely with all kinds of men and domestic animals, with unlimited time to lay plans and execute them, the elephant in captivity is chained to a stake, with no liberty of action whatever aside from begging with his trunk, eating and drinking. His only amusement is in swaying his body, swinging one foot, switching his tail, and (in a zoological park) looking for something that he can open or destroy. Such a ponderous beast cannot be allowed to roam at large among human beings, and the working elephant never leaves his stake and chain except under the guidance of his mahout. There is no means of estimating the wonderful powers of reasoning that captive elephants might develop if they could only enjoy the freedom accorded to all dogs except the blood-hound, bull-dog and a few others.

In the jungles of India the writer frequently has seen wild elephants reconnoitre dangerous ground by means of a scout or spy; communicate intelligence by signs; retreat in orderly silence from a lurking danger, and systematically march, in single file, like the jungle tribes of men.

Once having approached to within fifty yards of the stragglers of a herd of about thirty wild elephants, which was scattered over about four acres of very open forest and quietly feeding, two individuals of the herd on the side nearest us suddenly suspected danger. One of them elevated his trunk, with the tip bent forward, and smelled the air from various points of the compass. A moment later an old elephant left the herd and started straight for our ambush, scenting the air with upraised trunk as he slowly and noiselessly advanced. We instantly retreated, unobserved and unheard. The elephant advanced until he reached the identical spot where we had a moment before been concealed. He paused, and stood motionless as a statue for about two minutes, then wheeled about and quickly but noiselessly rejoined the herd. In less than half a minute the whole herd was in motion, heading directly away from us, and moving very rapidly, but without the slightest noise. The huge animals simply vanished like shadows into the leafy depths of the forest. Before proceeding a quarter of a mile, the entire herd formed in single file and continued strictly in that order for several miles. Like the human dwellers in the jungle, the elephants know that the easiest and most expeditious way for a large body of animals to traverse a tangled forest is for the leader to pick the way, while all the others follow in his footsteps.

In strong contrast with the stealthy and noiseless manner in which elephants steal away from a lurking danger, or an ambush discovered, from an open attack accompanied with the noise of fire-arms they rush away at headlong speed, quite regardless of the noise they make. On one occasion a herd which I was designing to attack, and had approached to within forty yards, as its members were feeding in some thick bushes, discovered my presence and retreated so silently that they had been gone five minutes before I discovered what their sudden quietude really meant. In this instance, as in several others, the still alarm was communicated by silent signals, or sign-language.

At the Zoological Park we reared an African pygmy elephant (Elephas pumilio). When his slender little tusks grew to eighteen inches in length he made some interesting uses of them. Once when the keepers wished to lead him upon our large platform scales, the trembling of the platform frightened him. He conceived the idea that it was unsafe, and therefore that he must keep off. He backed away, halted, and refused to leave solid ground. The men pushed him. He backed, and trumpeted a shrill protest. The men pushed harder, and forced him forward. Trumpeting his wild alarm and his protest against what he regarded as murder, he fell upon his knees and drove his tusks into the earth, quite up to his mouth, to anchor himself firmly to the solid ground. It was pathetic, but also amusing. When Congo finally was pushed upon the scales and weighed, he left the trembling instrument of torture with an air of disgust and disapproval that was quite as eloquent as words. On several occasions when taken out for exercise in the park, he endeavored to hinder the return to quarters by anchoring himself to Mother Earth.

Congo once startled us by his knowledge of the usefulness of doors. For a time he was kept in a compartment that had an outside door running sidewise on a trolley track, and controlled by two hanging chains, one to close it and one to open it. Each chain had on its end a stout iron ring for a handle. One chilly morning when I went to see Congo, I asked his keeper to open his door, so that he could go out.

The keeper did so, by pulling the right hand chain. The moment the draft of chilly outer air struck Congo, who stood in the centre of his stall facing me, he impatiently wheeled about, walked up to the left hand chain, grabbed it with his trunk, slipped the ring over one of his tusks, then inclined his head downward and with an irritated tug pulled the door shut with a spiteful slam. "Open it again," I said to the keeper.

He did so, and in the same way, but with a visible increase in irritation, Congo closed it in the same manner as before. Again the keeper opened the door, and this time, with a real exhibition of temper Congo again thrust the ring over his tusk, and brought the door shut with a resounding bang. It was his regular habit to close that door, or to open it, when he felt like more air or less air; and who is there who will say that the act was due to "instinct" in a jungle-bred animal, or anything else than original thought. The ring on his tusk was his own invention, as a means to a desired end.

Every elephant that we ever have had has become, through his own initiative and experimenting, an expert in unfastening the latches of doors and gates, and in untying chains and ropes. Gunda always knew enough to attack the padlocks on his leg chains, and break them if possible. No ordinary clevis would hold him. When the pin was threaded at one end and screwed into its place, Gunda would work at it, hour by hour, until he would start it to unscrewing, and then his trunk-tip would do the rest. The only clevis that he could not open was one in which a stout cotter pin was passed through the end of the clevis-pin and strongly bent.

Through reasons emanating in his own savage brain, Gunda took strong dislikes to several of our park people. He hated Dick Richards,—the keeper of Alice. He hated a certain messenger boy, a certain laborer, a painter and Mr. Ditmars. Toward me he was tolerant, and never rushed at me to kill me, as he always did to his pet aversions. He stood in open fear of his own keeper, Walter Thuman, until he had studied out a plan to catch him off his guard and "get him." Then he launched his long-contemplated attack, and Thuman was almost killed.

Our present (1921) male African elephant, Kartoum, is not so hostile toward people, but his insatiable desire is to break and to smash all of his environment that can be bent or broken. His ingenuity in finding ways to damage doors and gates, and to bend or to break steel beams, is amazing. His greatest feat consisted in breaking squarely in two, by pushing with his head, a 90-pound steel railroad iron used as the top bar of his fence. He knows the mechanism of the latch of the ponderous steel door between his two box stalls, and nothing but a small pin that only human fingers can manipulate suffices to thwart his efforts to control the latch.

Kartoum has gone over every inch of surface of his two apartments, his doors, gates and fences, to find something that he can break or damage. The steel linings of his apartment walls, originally five feet high, we have been compelled to extend upward to a height of nine feet, to save the brick walls from being battered and disfigured. He has searched his steel fences throughout, in order to find their weakest points, and concentrate his attacks upon them. If the sharp-pointed iron spikes three inches long that are set all over his doors are perfectly solid, he respects them, but if one is the least bit loose in its socket, he works at it until he finally breaks it off.

I invite any Doubting Thomas who thinks that Kartoum does not "think" and "reason" to try his own thinking and reasoning at inventing for Kartoum's door a latch that a keeper can easily and surely open and close at a distance of ten feet, and that will be Kartoum-proof. As for ourselves, three or four seemingly intelligent officers and keepers, and a capable foreman of construction, have all they can do to keep ahead of that one elephant, so great is his ingenuity in thwarting our ways and means to restrain him.

In about two days of effort our elephant keepers taught Gunda to receive a coin from the hand of a visitor, or pick it off the floor, lift the lid of a high-placed cash-box, drop the coin into it and ring a bell. This very amusing industry was kept up for several years, but finally it became so popular that it had to be discontinued.

Keeper Dick Richards easily taught Alice to blow a mouth organ, and to ring a telephone, to take the receiver off its hook and hold it to her ear and listen. For years Alice has rendered, every summer, valuable services of a serious nature in carrying children and other visitors around her yard, and only once or twice has she shown a contrary or obstinate spirit.

Tame elephants never tread on the feet of their attendants or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme and wholly voluntary solicitude for the safety of his human attendants can not be due to anything else than independent reasoning. The most intelligent dog is apt to greet his master by planting a pair of dirty paws against his coat or trousers. The most sensible carriage-horse is liable to step on his master's foot or crowd him against a wall in a moment of excitement; but even inside the keddah, with wild elephants all about, and a captive elephant hemmed in by three or four tame animals, the noosers safely work under the bodies and between the feet of the tame elephant until the feet of the captive are tied.

All who have witnessed the tying of captives in a keddah wherein a whole wild herd has been entrapped, testify to the uncanny human- like quality of the intelligence displayed by the tame elephants who assist in tying, leading out and subjugating the wild captives. They enter into the business with both spirit and understanding, and as occasion requires will deceitfully cajole or vigorously punish a troublesome captive. Sir Emerson Tennent asserts that the tame elephants display the most perfect conception of every movement, both of the object to be attained and the means to accomplish it.

Memory in the Elephant. So far as memory may be regarded as an index of an animal's mental capacity, the weight of evidence is most convincingly creditable to the elephant. As a test of memory in an animal, we hold that a trained performance surpasses all others. During the past forty years millions of people have witnessed in either Barnum's or Ringling Brothers' shows, or in the two combined, an imitation military drill performed by from twelve to twenty elephants which in animals of any other species would be considered a remarkable performance. The following were the commands given by one trainer, understood and remembered by each elephant, and executed without any visible hesitation or mistake. These we will call the

Accomplishments of Performing Elephants.

1. Fall in line.

2. Roll-call. (As each elephant's name is called, he takes his place in the ranks).

3. Present arms. (The trunk is uplifted, with its tip curved forward and held in that position for a short time.)

4. Forward, march.

5. File left, march.

6. Right about face, march.

7. Left about face, march.

8. Right by twos, march.

9. Double quick, march.

10. Single file, march.

11. File right.

12. Halt.

13. Ground arms. (All lie down, and lie motionless.)

14. Attention (All arise.)

15. Shoulder arms. (All stand up on their hind-legs.)

In all, fifteen commands were obeyed by the whole company of elephants.

It being impossible, or at least impracticable, to supply so large a number of animals with furniture and stage properties for a further universal performance, certain individuals were supplied with the proper articles when necessary for a continuation of the performance, as follows:

16. Ringing bells.

17. Climbing up a step-ladder.

18. Going lame in a fore leg.

19. Going lame in a hind leg.

20. Stepping up on a tub turned bottom up.



21. Standing on a tub on right legs only.

22. The same, on opposite legs.

23. The same, on the fore legs only.

24. The same, on the hind legs only.

25. Using a fan.

26. Turning a hand-organ.

27. Using a handkerchief to wipe the eyes.

28. Sitting in a chair.

29. Kneeling, with the fore legs.

30. Kneeling with the hind legs.

31. Walking astride a man lying lengthwise.

32. Stepping over a man lying down.

33. Forming a pyramid of elephants, by using tubs of various sizes.

While it is true that not all of the acts in the latter part of this performance were performed by each one of the elephants who went through the military drill, there is no reason to doubt the entire ability of each individual to be trained to obey the whole thirty-three commands, and to remember them all accurately and without confusion. The most astonishing feature of the performance, aside from the perfect obedience of the huge beasts, was their easy confidence and accuracy of memory.

We come now to a consideration of the Accomplishments of Working Elephants. In all the timber-forests of southern India every captive elephant is taught to perform all the following acts and services, as I have witnessed on many occasions:

1. To salaam, or salute, by raising the trunk.

2. To kneel, to receive a load or a passenger.

3. When standing, to hold up a fore-foot, to serve the driver as a step in climbing to his place.

4. To lie down to be washed, first on one side and then on the other.

5. To open the mouth. 6. To "hand up" any article from the ground to the reach of a person riding.

7. To pull down an obstructing bough.

8. To halt.

9. To back.

10. To pick up the end of a drag-rope and place it between the teeth.

11. To drag a timber.

12. To kneel and with the head turn a log over, or turn it with the tusks if any are present.

13. To push a log into position parallel with others.

14. To balance and carry timbers on the tusks, if possessing tusks of sufficient size.

15. To "speak," or trumpet.

16. To work in harness.

Every working elephant in India is supposed to possess the intelligence necessary to the performance of all the acts enumerated above at the command of his driver, either by spoken words, a pressure of the knees or feet, or a touch with the driving goad. For the sake of generalization I have purposely excluded from this list all tricks and accomplishments which are not universally taught to working elephants. We have seen, however, that performing elephants are capable of executing nearly double the number of acts commonly taught to the workers; and, while it is useless to speculate upon the subject, it must be admitted that, were a trainer to test an elephant's memory by ascertaining the exact number of commands it could remember and execute in rotation, the result would far exceed anything yet obtained. For my own part, I believe it would exceed a hundred. The performance in the circus-ring is limited by time and space, and not by the mental capacity of the elephants.

Comprehension under Training. When we come to consider the comparative mental receptivity and comprehension of animals under man's tuition, we find the elephant absolutely unsurpassed. On account of the fact that an elephant is about eighteen years in coming to anything like maturity, according to the Indian Government standard for working animals, it is far more economical and expeditious to catch full-grown elephants in their native jungles, and train them, than it is to breed and rear them. About ninety per cent of all the elephants now living in captivity were caught in a wild state and tamed, and of the remainder at least eighty per cent were born in captivity of females that were gravid when captured. It will be seen, therefore, that the elephant has derived no advantage whatever from ancestral association with man, and has gained nothing from the careful selection and breeding which, all combined, have made the collie dog, the pointer and the setter the wonderfully intelligent animals they are. For many generations the horse has been bred for strength, for speed, or for beauty of form, but the breeding of the dog has been based chiefly on his intelligence as a means to an end. With all his advantages, it is to be doubted whether the comprehensive faculties of the dog, even in the most exceptional individuals of a whole race, are equal to those of the adult wild elephant fresh from the jungle.

The extreme difficulty of teaching a dog of mature age even the simplest thing is so well known that it has passed into a proverb: "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." In other words, the conditions must be favorable. But what is the case with the elephant? The question shall be answered by G. P. Sanderson. In his "Wild Beasts of India," he says: "Nor are there any elephants which can not be easily subjugated, whatever their size or age. The largest and oldest elephants are frequently the most easily tamed, as they are less apprehensive than the younger ones."

Philosophy of the Elephant in Accepting Captivity and Making the Best of It. The most astounding feature in the education of an elephant is the suddenness of his transition from a wild and lawless denizen of the forest to the quiet, plodding, good- tempered, and cheerful beast of draught or burden. I call it astounding, because in comparison with what could not be done with other wild animals caught when adult, no other word is adequate to express the difference. The average wild animal caught fully grown is "a terror," and so far as training is concerned, perfectly impossible.

There takes place in the keddah, or pen of capture, a mighty struggle between the giant strength of the captive and the ingenuity of man, ably seconded by a few powerful tame elephants. When he finds his strength utterly overcome by man's intelligence, he yields to the inevitable, and accepts the situation philosophically. Sanderson once had a narrow escape from death while on the back of a tame elephant inside a keddah, attempting to secure a wild female. She fought his elephant long and viciously, with the strength and courage of despair, but finally she was overcome by superior numbers. Although her attack on Sanderson in the keddah was of the most murderous description, he states that her conduct after her defeat was most exemplary, and she never afterward showed any signs of ill-temper.

Mr. Sanderson and an elephant-driver once mounted a full-grown female elephant on the sixth day after her capture, without even the presence of a tame animal. Sir Emerson Tennent records an instance wherein an elephant fed from the hand on the first night of its capture, and in a very few days evinced pleasure at being patted on the head. Such instances as the above can be multiplied indefinitely. To what else shall they be attributed than philosophic reasoning on the part of the elephant? The orang-utan and the chimpanzee, so often put forward as his intellectual superior, when captured alive at any other period than that of helpless infancy, are vicious, aggressive, and intractable not only for weeks and months, but for the remainder of their lives. Orangs captured when fully adult exhibit the most tiger-like ferocity, and are wholly intractable.

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.

The thoughtful observer does not need to be told that the brain of the ponderous quadruped acts, as far as it goes, with the same rapidity and precision as that of an intelligent man,—and this, too, in a performance that is wholly artificial and acquired. In the performance of Bartholomew's horses, of which I once kept a record in detail, even the most accomplished members of his troupe often had to be commanded again and again before they would obey. A command often was repeated for the fifth or sixth time before the desired result was obtained. I noted particularly that not one of his horses,—which were the most perfectly trained of any ever seen by me,—was an exception to this rule, or performed his tasks with the prompt obedience and self-confidence so noticeable in each one of the sixteen Barnum elephants. The horses usually obeyed with tardiness and hesitation, and very often manifested nervousness and uncertainty.

In the mind of the elephant, e. g., each elephant, there was no confusion of ideas or lapses of memory, but, on the contrary, the mental grasp on the whole subject was so secure and comprehensive that the animal felt himself the master of the situation.

I have never yet seen a performance of trained dogs which could be considered worthy of serious comparison with the accomplishments of either performing or working elephants. In the matter of native educational capacity the dog can not on any grounds be considered the rival of the elephant. The alleged mental superiority of the dog is based almost wholly upon his powers of independent reasoning and observation as exhibited in a state of almost perfect freedom. Until the elephant who has grown to maturity under man's influence, is allowed the dog's freedom to plan and execute, no conclusive comparison between them can be made.

Moral Qualities of the Elephant. Finally, we come to a consideration of the elephant's moral qualities that have a direct bearing upon our subject. In India, excepting the professional "rogue," the elephant bears a spotless reputation for patience, amiability and obedience. The "rogue" is an individual afflicted with either an incorrigible disposition, or else is afflicted with insanity, either temporary or permanent. I know of no instance on record wherein a normal elephant with a healthy mind has been guilty of unprovoked homicide, or even of attempting it. I have never heard of an elephant in India so much as kicking, striking or otherwise injuring either human beings or other domestic animals. There have been several instances, however, of persons killed by elephants which were temporarily insane, or "must," and also by others permanently insane. In America several persons have been killed in revenge for ill treatment. In Brooklyn a female elephant once killed a civilian who burned her trunk with a lighted cigar. It is the misfortune but not the fault of the elephant that in advanced age or by want of necessary exercise, he is liable to be attacked by must, or sexual insanity, during which period he is clearly irresponsible for his acts.

So many men have been killed by elephants in this country that of late years the idea has been steadily gaining ground that elephants are naturally ill-tempered, and vicious to a dangerous extent. Under fair conditions, nothing could be farther from the truth. We have seen that in the hands of the "gentle Hindu" the elephant is safe and reliable, and never attacks man except under the circumstances already stated. In this country, however, many an elephant is at the mercy of quick-tempered and sometimes revengeful showmen, who very often do not understand the temperaments of the animals under their control, and who during the traveling season are rendered perpetually ill-tempered and vindictive by reason of overwork and insufficient sleep. With such masters as these it is no wonder that occasionally an animal rebels, and executes vengeance. In Minneapolis in December an elephant once went on a rampage through the freezing of its ears. I am quite convinced that an elephant could by ill treatment be driven to insanity, and I have no doubt that this has been done many times. Our bad elephant, Gunda, was bad by nature, but finally he became afflicted with sexual insanity, for which there was no cure. When commanded by man, the elephant will tear a criminal limb from limb, or crush him to death with his knees, or go out to battle holding a sword in his trunk. He will, when told to do so, attack his kind with fury and persistence; but in the course of many hours, and even days, spent in watching wild herds, I never yet saw a single individual show any signs of impatience or ill-temper toward his fellows.

It is safe to say that, thus far, not one half the elephant's mental capabilities have been developed, or even understood. It would be of great interest to determine by experiment the full educational capacity of this interesting quadruped. It would be equally interesting to determine the limit of its reasoning powers in applied mechanics. An animal that can turn a hand-organ at the proper speed, or ring a telephone and go through the motions of listening with a receiver, can be taught to push a smoothing-plane invented purposely for him; but whether he would learn of himself to plane the rough surface smooth, and let the smooth ones remain untouched, is an open question.

While it is generally fruitless and unsatisfactory to enter the field of speculation, I can not resist the temptation to assert my belief that an elephant can be taught to read written characters, and also to express some of his own thoughts or states of feeling in writing. It would be a perfectly simple matter to prepare suitable appliances by which the sagacious animal could hold a crayon in his trunk, and mark upon a surface adapted to his convenience. Many an elephant has been taught to make chalk-marks on a blackboard. In Julian's work on "The Nature of Animals," the eleventh chapter of the second book, he describes in detail the wonderful performances of elephants at Rome, all of which he saw. One passage is of peculiar interest to us, and the following has been given as a translation: "...I saw them writing letters on Roman tablets with their trunks, neither looking awry nor turning aside. The hand, however, of the teacher was placed so as to be a guide in the formation of the letters; and, while it was writing, the animal kept its eye fixed down in an accomplished and scholar- like manner."

I can conceive how an elephant may be taught that certain characters represent certain ideas, and that they are capable of intelligent combinations. The system and judgment and patient effort which developed an active, educated, and even refined intellect in Laura Bridgman—deaf, dumb and blind from birth— ought certainly to be able to teach a clear-headed, intelligent elephant to express at least some of his thoughts in writing.

I believe it is as much an act of murder to wantonly take the life of a healthy elephant as to kill a native Australian or a Central- African savage. If it is more culpable to kill an ignorant human savage than an elephant, it is also more culpable to kill an elephant than an echinoderm. Many men are both morally and intellectually lower than many quadrupeds, and are, in my opinion, as wholly destitute of that indefinable attribute called soul as all the lower animals commonly are supposed to be.

If an investigator like Dr. Yerkes, and an educator like Dr. Howe, should take it in hand to develop the mind of the elephant to the highest possible extent, their results would be awaited with peculiar interest, and it would be strange if they did not necessitate a revision of the theories now common among those who concede an immortal soul to every member of the human race, even down to the lowest, but deny it to all the animals below man.

Curvature in the Brain of an Elephant. There is curvature of the spine; and there is curvature in the brain. It afflicts the human race, and all other vertebrates are subject to it.

In the Zoological Park we have had, and still have, a persistent case of it in a female Indian elephant now twenty-three years of age, named "Alice." Her mental ailment several times manifested itself in Luna Park, her former home; but when we purchased the animal her former owners carelessly forgot to mention it.

Four days after Alice reached her new temporary home in our Antelope House, and while being marched around the Park for exercise, she heard the strident cry of one of our mountain lions, and immediately turned and bolted.

Young as she was at that time, her two strong and able-bodied keepers, Thuman and Bayreuther, were utterly unable to restrain her. She surged straight forward for the front door of the Reptile House, and into that building she went, with the two keepers literally swinging from her ears.

As the great beast suddenly loomed up above the crowd of sightseers in the quiet building, the crowd screamed and became almost panic-stricken.

Partly by her own volition and partly by encouragement, she circumnavigated the turtle-bank and went out.

Once outside she went where she pleased, and the keepers were quite unable to control her. Half an hour later she again headed for the Reptile House and we knew that she would again try to enter.

In view of the great array of plate glass cases in that building, many of them containing venomous cobras, rattlesnakes, moccasins and bushmasters, we were thoroughly frightened at the prospect of that crazy beast again coming within reach of them.

With our men fighting frantically, and exhausted by their prolonged efforts to control her, Alice again entered the Reptile House. As she attempted to pass into the main hall,—the danger zone,—our men succeeded in chaining her front feet to the two steel posts of the guard rail, set solidly in concrete on each side of the doorway. Alice tried to pull up those posts by their roots, but they held; and there in front of the Crocodile Pool the keepers and I camped for the night. We fed her hay and bread, to keep her partially occupied, and wondered what she would do in the morning when we would attempt to remove her.

Soon after dawn a force of keepers arrived. Chaining the elephant's front feet together so that she could not step more than a foot, we loosed the chains from the two posts and ordered her to come to an "about face," and go out. Instead of doing that she determinedly advanced toward the right, and came within reach of twelve handsome glazed cases of live reptiles that stood on a long table. Frantically the men tried to drive her back. For answer she put her two front feet on the top bar of the steel guard rail and smashed ten feet of it to the floor. Then she began to butt those glass snake cages off their table, one by one.

"Boom!" "Bang!" "Crash!" they went on the floor, one after another. Soon fourteen banded rattlesnakes of junior size were wriggling over the floor. "Smash" went more cases. The Reptile House was in a great uproar. Soon the big wall cases would be reached, and then—I would be obliged to shoot her dead, to avoid a general delivery of poisonous serpents, and big pythons from twenty to twenty-two feet long. The room resounded with our shouts, and the angry trumpeting of Alice.

At last, by vigorous work with the elephant hooks, Alice was turned and headed out of the building. A foot at a time she passed out, then headed toward the bear dens. Midway, we steered her in among some young maple trees, and soon had her front legs chained to one of them. Alice tried to push it over, and came near to doing so.

Then we quickly tied her hind legs together,—and she was all ours. Seeing that all was clear for a fall, we joyously pushed Alice off her feet. She went over, and fell prone upon her side. In three minutes all her feet were securely anchored to trees, and we sat down upon her prostrate body.

At that crowning indignity Alice was the maddest elephant in the world for that day. We gave her food, and the use of her trunk, and left her there twenty-four hours, to think it over. She deserved a vast beating with canes; but we gave her no punishment whatever. It would have served no good purpose.

During the interval we telephoned to Coney Island, and asked Dick Richards, the former keeper of Alice, to come and reason with her. Promptly he came,—and he is still guiding as best he can the checkered destinies of that erring female.

When Alice was unwound and permitted to arise,—with certain limitations as to her progress through the world,—it was evident that she was in a chastened mood. She quietly marched to her quarters at the Antelope House, and there we interned her. But that was not all of Alice. Very soon we had to move her to the completed Elephant House, half a mile away. Keeper Richards said that two or three times she had bolted into buildings at Luna Park; so we prepared to overcome her idiosyncrasies by a combination of force and strategy. I had the men procure a strong rope about one hundred feet long, in the middle of which I had them fix a very nice steel hook, large enough to hook suddenly around a post or a tree.

One end of that rope we tied to the left foot of Charming Alice, and the remainder of the rope was carried out at full length in front of her.

Willingly enough she started from the Antelope House, and Richards led her about three hundred feet. Then she stopped, and disregarding all advice and hooks, started to come about, to return to the Antelope House. Quickly the anchor was hooked around the nearest fence post, and Alice fetched up against a force stronger than herself. She was greatly annoyed, but in a few minutes decided to go on.

Another lap of two hundred feet, and the same act was repeated, without the slightest variation.

This process continued for nearly half a mile. By that time we were opposite the Elk House and Alice had become wild with baffled rage. She tried hard to smash fences and uproot trees.

At last she stood still and refused to move another foot; and then we played our ace of trumps. Near by, twenty laborers were working. Calling all hands, they took hold of that outstretched rope, and heading straight for the new Elephant House started a new tug of war. Every "heave-ho" of that hilarious company meant a three-foot step forward for Gentle Alice,—willy-nilly. As she raged and roared, the men heaved and laughed. A yard at a time they pulled that fatal left foot, into the corral and into the apartment of Alice; and she had to follow it.

Ever since that time, Alice has been permanently under arrest, and confined to her quarters; but within the safe precincts of two steel-bound yards she carries children on her back, and in summer earns her daily bread.

Elephant Mentality in the Jungle. Mr. A. E. Ross, while Commissioner of Forests in Burma, had many interesting experiences with elephants, and he related the following:

A bad-tempered mahout who had been cruel to his work-elephant finally so enraged the animal that it attempted to take revenge. To forestall an accident, the mahout was discharged, and for two years he completely disappeared. After that lapse of time he quietly reappeared, looking for an engagement. As the line of elephants stood at attention at feeding time, with a score of persons in a group before them, the elephant instantly recognized the face of his old enemy, rushed for him, and drove him out of the camp.

An ill-tempered and dangerous elephant, feared by everybody, once had the end of his trunk nearly cut off in an accident. While the animal was frantic with the pain of it, Mr. Ross ordered him to lie down. As the patient lay in quiet submission, he dressed the wound and put the trunk in rude bamboo splints. The elephant wisely aided the amateur elephant doctor until the wound healed; and afterward that once dangerous animal showed dog-like affection for Mr. Ross.



XII

THE MENTAL AND MORAL TRAITS OF BEARS

Considered as a group, the bears of the world are supremely interesting animals. In fact, no group surpasses them save the Order Primates, and it requires the enrollment of all the apes, baboons and monkeys to accomplish it.

From sunrise to sunrise a bear is an animal of original thought and vigorous enterprise. Put a normal bear in any new situation that you please, he will try to make himself master of it. Use any new or strange material that you please, of wood, metal, stone or concrete, and he will cheerfully set out to find its weakest points and destroy it. If one board in a wall happens to be of wood a little softer than its fellows, with wonderful quickness and precision he will locate it. To tear his way out of an ordinary wooden cage he asks nothing better than a good crack or a soft knot as a starting point.

Let him who thinks that all animals are mere machines of heredity and nothing more, take upon himself the task of collecting, yarding, housing and KEEPING a collection of thirty bears from all over the world, representing from ten to fifteen species. In a very short time the believer in bear knowledge by inheritance only, will begin to see evidences of new thought.

In spite of our best calculations, in twenty-two years and a total of about seventy bears, we have had three bear escapes. The species involved were an Indian sloth bear, an American black bear and a Himalayan black bear. The troublesome three laboriously invented processes by which, supported by surpassing acrobatics, they were able to circumvent our overhanging bars. Now, did the mothers of those bears bequeath to them the special knowledge which enabled them to perform the acrobatic mid-air feat of warping themselves over that sharp-pointed overhang barrier? No; because none of their parents ever saw steel cage-work of any kind.

Universal Traits. The traits common to the majority of bear species as we see them manifested in captivity are the following:

First, playfulness; second, spasmodic treachery; third, contentment in comfortable captivity; fourth, love of water; fifth, enterprise in the mischievous destruction of things that can be destroyed.

The bears of the world are distributed throughout Asia, Borneo, the heavy forests of Europe, all North America, and the northwestern portion of South America. In view of their wonderfully interesting traits, it is surprising that so few books have been written about them. The variations in bear character and habit are almost as wide as the distribution of the species.

There are four books in English that are wholly devoted to American bears and their doings. These are "The Grizzly Bear" and "The Black Bear," by William H. Wright, of Spokane(Scribner's), "The Grizzly Bear," by Enos A. Mills, and "The Adventures of James Capen Adams." In 1918 Dr. C. Hart Merriam published as No. 41 of "North American Fauna" a "Review of the Grizzly and Brown Bears of North America" (U.S. Govt.). This is a scientific paper of 135 pages, the product of many years of collecting and study, and it recognizes and describes eighty-six species and sub-species of those two groups in North America. The classification is based chiefly upon the skulls of the animals.

It is unfortunate that up to date no bear student with a tireless pen has written The Book of Bears. But let no man rashly assume that he knows "all about bears." While many bears do think and act along certain lines, I am constantly warning my friends, "Beware of the Bear! You never can tell what he will do next." I hasten to state that of all the bears of the world, the "pet" bear is the most dangerous.

A Story of a "Pet" Bear. In one of the cities of Canadaa gentleman greatly interested in animals kept a young bear cub, as a pet; and once more I say—if thine enemy offend thee, present him with a black-bear cub. The bear was kept in a back yard, chained to a post, and after his first birthday that alleged "pet" dominated everything within his circumpolar region.

One day a lady and gentleman called to see the pet, to observe how tame and good-natured it was. The owner took on his arm a basket of tempting apples, and going into the bear's territory proceeded to show how the Black One would eat from his owner's hand.

The bear was given an apple, which was promptly eaten. The owner reached for a second, but instead of accepting it, the bear instantly became a raging demon. He struck Mr. C. a lightning- quick and powerful blow upon his head, ripping his scalp open. With horrible growls and bawling, the beast, standing fully erect, struck again and again at his victim, who threw his arms across his face to save it from being torn to pieces. Fearful blows from the bear's claw-shod paws rained upon Mr. C.'s head, and his scalp was almost torn away. In the melee he fell, and the bear pounced upon him, to kill him.

The visiting gentleman rushed for a club. Meanwhile the lady visitor, rendered frantic by the sight of the bear killing her host, did a very brave but suicidally dangerous thing. She seized the hindquarters of the bear, gripping the fur in her bare hands, and actually dragged the animal off its victim! Fortunately at that dangerous juncture the lady's husband rushed up with a club, beat the raging animal as it deserved, and mastered it.

The owner of the bear survived his injuries, and by a great effort the surgeons saved his scalp. A "pet" bear in its second year may become the most dangerous of all wild animals. This is because it seems so affectionate and docile, and yet is liable to turn in one second,—and without the slightest warning, —into a deadly enemy.

Scores of times we have seen this quick change in temper take place in bears inhabiting our dens. Four bears will be quietly and peacefully consuming their bread and vegetables when,— "biff!" Like a stroke of lightning a hairy right arm shoots out and lands with a terriffic jolt on the head of a peaceful companion. The victim roars,—in surprise, pain and protest, and then a fight is on. The aggressor roars and bawls, and follows up his blow as if to exterminate his perfectly inoffensive cage-mate.

Mean and cruel visitors are fond of starting bear fights by throwing into the cages tempting bits of fruit, or peanuts; and sometimes a peach stone kills a valuable bear by getting jammed in the pyloric orifice of the stomach.

The owners of bears should NEVER allow visitors to throw food to them. Unlimited feeding by visitors will spoil the tempers of the best bears in the world.

Power of Expression in Bears. Next to the apes and monkeys, I regard bears as the most demonstrative of all wild animals. The average bear is proficient in the art of expression. The position of his ears, the pose of his head and neck, the mobility of his lips and his walking or his resting attitudes all tell their story.

To facial and bodily expression the bear adds his voice; and herein he surpasses most other wild animals! According to his mood he whines, he threatens, or warns by loud snorting. He roars with rage, and when in pain he cries, or he bawls and howls. In addition to this he threatens an enemy by snapping his jaws together with a mighty ominous clank, accompanied by a warning nasal whine. An angry bear will at times give a sudden rake with his claws to the ground, or the concrete on which he stands. Now, with all this facility for emotional expression, backed by an alert and many-sided mind, boundless energy and a playful disposition, is it strange that bears are among the most interesting animals in the world?

Bears in Captivity. With but few exceptions the bears of the world are animals with philosophic minds, and excellent reasoning power, though rarely equal to that of the elephant. One striking proof of this is the promptness with which adult animals accept comfortable captivity, and settle down in contentment. What we mean by comfortable captivity very shortly will be defined.

No bear should be kept in a cage with stone walls and an uneven floor; nor without a place to climb; and wherein life is a daily chapter of inactive and lonesome discomfort and unhappiness. The old-fashioned bear "pit" is an abomination of desolation, a sink- hole of misery, and all such means of bear torture should be banished from all civilized countries.

He who cannot make bears comfortable, contented and happy should not keep any.

A large collection of bears of many species properly installed may be relied upon to reveal many variations of temperament and mentality, from the sanguine and good-natured stoic to the hysterical demon. Captivity brings out many traits of character that in a wild state are either latent or absent.

Prominent Traits of Prominent Species. After twenty years of daily observation we now know that

The grizzly is the most keen-minded species of all bears.

The big Alaskan brown bears are the least troublesome in captivity.

The polar bear lives behind a mask, and is not to be trusted.

The black bear is the nearest approach to a general average in ursine character.

The European brown bears are best for training and performances.

The Japanese black bear is nervous, cowardly and hysterical; the little Malay sun bear is the most savage and unsatisfactory.

The Lesson of the Polar and Grizzly. The polar bears of the north, and the Rocky Mountain grizzlies, a hundred years ago were bold and aggressive. That was in the days of the weak, small-bore, muzzle-loading rifles, black powder and slow firing. Today all that is changed. All those bears have recognized the fearful deadliness of the long-range, high-power repeating rifle, and the polar and the grizzly flee from man at the first sight of him, fast and far. No grizzly attacks a man unless it has been attacked, or wounded, or cornered, or thinks it is cornered. As an exception, Mr. Stefansson observed two or three polar bears who seemed to be quite unacquainted with man, and but little afraid of him.

The great California grizzly is now believed to be totally extinct. The campaign of Mr. J. A. McGuire, Editor of Outdoor Life Magazine, to secure laws for the reasonable protection of bears, is wise, timely and thoroughly deserving of success because such laws are now needed. The bag limit on grizzlies this side of Alaska should be one per year, and no trapping of grizzlies should be permitted anywhere.

The big brown bears of Alaska have not yet recognized the true deadliness of man. They have vanquished so many Indians, and injured or killed so many white men that as yet they are unafraid, insolent, aggressive and dangerous. They need to be shot up so thoroughly that they will learn the lesson of the polars and grizzlies,—that man is a dangerous animal, and the only safe course is to run from him at first sight.

Bears Learn the Principles of Wild Life Protection. Ordinarily both the grizzlies and black bears are shy, suspicious and intensely "wild" creatures; and therefore the quickness and thoroughness with which they learn that they are in sanctuary is all the more surprising. The protected bears of the Yellowstone Park for years have been to tourists a source of wonder and delight. The black bears are recklessly trustful, and familiar quite to the utmost limits. The grizzlies are more reserved, but they have done what the blacks have very wisely not done. They have broken the truce of protection, and attacked men on their own ground.

Strange to say, of several attacks made upon camping parties, the most serious and most nearly fatal was that of 1917 upon Ned Frost, the well-known guide of Cody, Wyoming, and his field companion. They were sleeping under their wagon, well wrapped from the cold in heavy blankets and comfortables, and it is to their bedding alone that they owe their lives. They were viciously attacked by a grizzly, dragged about and mauled, and Frost was seriously bitten and clawed. Fortunately the bedding engaged the activities of their assailant sufficiently that the two men finally escaped alive.

How Buffalo Jones Disciplined a Bad Grizzly. The most ridiculous and laughable performance ever put up with a wild grizzly bear as an actor was staged by Col. C. J.("Buffalo") Jones when he was superintendent of the wild animals of the Yellowstone Park. He marked down for punishment a particularly troublesome grizzly that had often raided tourists' camps at a certain spot, to steal food. Very skilfully he roped that grizzly around one of his hind legs, suspended him from the limb of a tree, and while the disgraced and outraged silver-tip swung to and fro, bawling, cursing, snapping, snorting and wildly clawing at the air, Buffalo Jones whaled it with a bean-pole until he was tired. With commendable forethought Mr. Jones had for that occasion provided a moving-picture camera, and this film always produces roars of laughter.

Now, here is where we guessed wrongly. We supposed that whenever and wherever a well-beaten grizzly was turned loose, the angry animal would attack the lynching party. But not so. When Mr. Jones' chastened grizzly was turned loose, it thought not of reprisals. It wildly fled to the tall timber, plunged into it, and there turned over a new leaf. I once said: "C. J., you ought to shoot some of those grizzlies, and teach all the rest of them to behave themselves."



"I know it!" he responded, "I know it! But Col. Anderson won't let me: He says that if we did, some people would make a great fuss about it; and I suppose they would."

Recently, however, it has been found imperatively necessary to teach the Park grizzlies a few lessons on the sanctity of a sanctuary, and the rights of man.

We will now record a few cases that serve to illustrate the mental traits of bears.

Case I. The Steel Panel. Two huge male Alaskan brown bears, Ivan and Admiral, lived in adjoining yards. The partition between them consisted of panels of steel. The upper panels were of heavy bar iron. The bottom panels, each four feet high and six feet long, were of flat steel bars woven into a basket pattern. The ends of these flat bars had been passed through narrow slots in the heavy steel frame, and firmly clinched. We would have said that no land animal smaller than an elephant could pull out one of those panels.

By some strange aberration in management, one day it chanced that Admiral's grizzly bear wife was introduced for a brief space into Ivan's den. Immediately Admiral went into a rage, on the ground that his constitutional rights had been infringed. At once he set to work to recover his stolen companion. He began to test those partition panels, one by one. Finally he found the one that seemed to him least powerful, and he at once set to work to tear it out of its frame.

The keepers knew that he could not succeed; but he thought differently. Hooking his short but very powerful claws into the meshes he braced backward and pulled. After a fierce struggle an upper corner yielded. Then the other corner yielded; and at last the whole upper line gave way.

I reached the scene just as he finished tearing both ends free. I saw him bend the steel panel inward, crush it down with his thousand pounds of weight, and dash through the yawning hole into his rival's arena.

Then ensued a great battle. The two huge bears rose high on their hind legs, fiercely struck out with their front paws, and fought mouth to mouth, always aiming to grip the throat. They bit each other's cheeks but no serious injuries were inflicted, and very soon by the vigorous use of pick-handles the two bear keepers drove the fighters apart.

Case 2. Ivan's Begging Scheme. Ivan came from Alaska when a small cub and he has long been the star boarder at the Bear Dens. He is the most good-natured bear that we have, and he has many thoughts. Having observed the high arm motion that a keeper makes in throwing loaves of bread over the top of the nine-foot cage work, Ivan adopted that motion as part of his sign language when food is in sight outside. He stands up high, like a man, and with his left arm he motions, just as the keepers do. Again and again he waves his mighty arm, coaxingly, suggestively, and it says as plain as print: "Come on! Throw it in! Throw it!"

If there is too much delay in the response, he motions with his right paw, also, both arms working together. It is irresistible. At least 500 times has he thus appealed, and he will do it whenever a loaf of bread is held up as the price of an exhibition of his sign language. Of course Ivan thought this out himself, and put it into practice for a very definite purpose.

Case 3. Ivan's Invention for Cracking Beef Bones. Ivan invented a scheme for cracking large beef bones, to get at the ultimate morsels of marrow. He stands erect on his hind feet, first holds the picked bone against his breast, then with his right paw he poises it very carefully upon the back of his left paw. When it is well balanced he flings it about ten feet straight up into the air. When it falls upon the concrete floor a sufficient number of times it breaks, and Ivan gets his well-earned reward. This same plan was pursued by Billy, another Alaskan brown bear. Case 4. A Bear's Ingenious Use of a Door. When Admiral is annoyed and chased disagreeably by either of his two cage-mates he runs into his sleeping-den, slams the steel door shut from the inside, and thus holds his tormentors completely at bay until it suits him to roll the door back again and come out. At night in winter when he goes to bed he almost always shuts the door tightly from within, and keeps it closed all night. He does not believe in sleeping- porches, nor wide-open windows in sleeping-quarters.

Case 5. Admiral Will Not Tolerate White Boots. Recently our bear keepers have found that Admiral has violent objections to boots of white rubber. Keeper Schmidt purchased a pair, to take the place of his old black ones, but when he first wore them into the den for washing the floor the bear flew at him so quickly and so savagely that he had all he could do to make a safe exit. A second trial having resulted similarly, he gave the boots a coat of black paint. But one coat was not wholly satisfactory to Admiral. He saw the hated white through the one coat of black, promptly registered "disapproval," and the patient keeper was forced to add another coat of black. After that the new boots were approved.

Case 6. The Mystery of Death. Once upon a time we had a Japanese black bear named Jappie, quartered in a den with a Himalayan black bear,—the species with long, black side-whiskers and a white tip to its chin. The Japanese bear was about one-third smaller than the Himalayan black.

One night the Japanese bear died, and in the morning the keepers found it lying on the level concrete top of the sleeping dens.

At once they went in to remove the body; but the Himalayan black bear angrily refused to permit them to touch it. For half an hour the men made one effort after another to coax, or entice or to drive the guardian bear away from the dead body, but in vain. When I reached the strange and uncanny scene, the guardian bear was in a great rage. It took a position across the limp body, and from that it fiercely refused to move or to be driven. As an experiment we threw in a lot of leaves, and the guardian promptly raked them over the dead one and stood pat.

We procured a long pole, and from a safe place on the top of the nearest overhang, a keeper tried to prod or push away the guardian of the dead. The living one snarled, roared, and with savage vigor bit the end of the pole. By the time the bear was finally enticed with food down to the front of the den, and the body removed, seven hours had elapsed.

Now, what were the ideas and emotions of the bear? One man can answer about as well as another. We think that the living bear realized that something terrible had happened to its cage-mate,— in whom he never before had manifested any guardianship interest,—and he felt called upon to defend a friend who was very much down and out. It was the first time that he had encountered the great mystery, Death; and whatever it was, he resented it.

Case 7. A Terrible Punishment. Once we had a particularly mean and vicious young Adirondack black bear named Tommy. In a short time he became known as Tommy the Terror. We put him into a big yard with Big Ben, from Florida, and two other bears smaller than Ben, but larger than himself.

In a short time the Terror had whipped and thoroughly cowed Bruno and Jappie. Next he tackled Ben; but Ben's great bulk was too much for him. Finally he devoted a lot of time to bullying and reviling through the bars a big but good-natured cinnamon bear, named Bob, who lived in the next den. In all his life up to that time, Bob had had only one fight. Tommy's treatment of Bob was so irritating to everybody that it was much remarked upon; and presently we learned how Bob felt about it.

One morning while doing the cage work, the keeper walked through the partition gate from Bob's den into Tommy's. He slammed the iron gate behind him, as usual, but this time the latch did not catch as usual. In a moment Bob became aware of this unstable condition. Very innocently he sauntered up to the gate, pushed it open, and walked through into the next den. The keeper was then twenty feet away, but a warning cry from without set him in motion to stop the intruder.



Having no club to face, Bob quietly ignored the keeper's broom. Paying not the slightest attention to the three inoffensive bears, Bob fixed his gaze on the Terror, at the far end of the den, then made straight for him. Tommy made a feeble attempt at defense, but Bob seized him by the back, bit him, and savagely shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. The Terror yelled lustily "Murder! Murder! Help!" but none of the other bears made a move for his defense. Bob was there to give Tommy the punishment that was due him for his general meanness and his insulting behavior.

The horrified keeper secured his pike-pole, with a stout spike set in the end for defense, and drove the spike into Bob's shoulder. Bob went right on killing the Terror. Again the keeper drove in his goad, and blood flowed freely; but Bob paid not the slightest attention to this severe punishment.

Then the keeper began to beat the cinnamon over the nose; and that made him yield. He gave the Terror a parting shake, let him go, and with a bloody shoulder deliberately walked out of that den and into his own. The punishment of the Terror went to the full limit, and we think all those bears approved it. In a few hours he died of his injuries.

Case 8. The Grizzly Bear and the String. One of the best illustrations I know of the keenness and originality of a wild bear's mind and senses, is found in Mr. W. H. Wright's account of the grizzly bear he did not catch with an elk bait and two set guns, in the Bitter Root Mountains. This story is related in Chapter VI.

Case 9. Silver King's Memory of His Capture. At this moment we have a huge polar bear who refuses to forget that he was captured in the water, in Kane Basin, and who now avoids the water in his swimming pool, almost as much as any burned child dreads fire. Throughout the hottest months of midsummer old Silver King lies on the rock floor of his huge and handsome den, grouching and grumbling, and not more than once a week enjoying a swim in his spacious pool. No other polar bear of ours ever manifested such an aversion for water. The other polar bears who have occupied that same den loved that pool beyond compare, and used to play in its waters for hours at a time. Evidently the chase of Silver King through green arctic water and over ice floes, mile after mile, his final lassoing, and the drag behind a motor boat to the ship were, to old Silver King, a terrible tragedy. Now he regards all deep water as a trap to catch bears, but, strange to relate, the winter's snow and ice seem to renew his interest in his swimming pool. Occasionally he is seen at play in the icy water, and toying with pieces of ice.

Memory in Bears. I think that ordinarily bear memory for human faces and voices is not long. Once I saw Mr. William Lyman Underwood test the memory of a black bear that for eighteen months had been his household pet and daily companion. After a separation of a year, which the bear spent in a public park near Boston, Mr. Underwood approached, alone, close up to the bars of his cage. He spoke to him in the old way, and called him by his old name, but the bear gave absolutely no sign of recognition or remembrance.

How a Wild Grizzly Bear Caches Food. The silver-tip grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains has a mental trait and a corresponding habit which seems to be unique in bear character. It is the habit of burying food for future use. Once I had a rare opportunity to observe this habit. It was in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, in the month of September(1905), while bears were very activism. John M. Phillips and I shot two large white goats, one of which rolled down a steep declivity and out upon the slide- rock, where it was skinned. The flensed body of the other was rolled over the edge of a cliff, and fell on a brushy soil-covered spot about on the same level as the remains of goat No. 1.

The fresh goat remains were promptly discovered by a lusty young grizzly, which ate to satiety from Goat No. 1. With the remains of. Goat No. 2 the grizzly industriously proceeded to establish a cache of meat for future use.

The goat carcass was dragged to a well chosen spot of seclusion on moss-covered earth. On the steep hillside a shallow hole was dug, the whole carcass rolled into it, and then upon it the bear piled nearly a wagon load of fresh earth, moss, and green plants that had been torn up by the roots. Over the highest point of the carcass the mass was twenty-four inches deep. On the ground the cache was elliptical in shape, and its outline measured about seven by nine feet. On the lower side it was four feet high, and on the upper side two feet. The cache was built around two larch saplings, as if to secure their support. On the uphill side of the cache the ground was torn up in a space shaped like a half moon, twenty-eight feet long by nineteen wide.

I regard that cache as a very impressive exhibit of ursine thought, reasoning and conclusion. It showed more fore-thought and provision, and higher purpose in the conservation of food than some human beings ever display, even at their best. The plains Indians and the buffalo hunters were horribly wasteful and improvident. The impulse of that grizzly was to make good use of every pound of that meat, and to conserve for the future.

Survival of the Bears.—The bears of North America have survived thirty thousand years after the lions and the sabre-toothed tigers of La Brea perished utterly and disappeared. But there were bears also in those days, as the asphalt pits reveal. Now, why did not all the bears of North America share the fate of the lions and the tigers? It seems reasonable to answer that it was because the bears were wiser, more gifted in the art of self-preservation, and more resourceful in execution. In view of the omnivorous menu of bears, and their appalling dependence upon small things for food, it is to me marvelous that they now maintain themselves with such astounding success.

A grizzly will dig a big and rocky hole three or four feet deep to get one tiny ground-squirrel, a tidbit so small that an adult grizzly could surely eat one hundred of them, like so many plums, at one sitting. A bear will feed on berries under such handicaps that one would not be surprised to see a bear starve to death in a berry-patch.

But almost invariably the wild bear when killed is fairly well fed and prosperous; and I fancy that no one ever found a bear that had died of cold and exposure. The cunning of the black bear in self- preservation surpasses that of all other large mammal species of North America save the wolf, the white-tailed deer and the coyote. In the game of self-preservation I will back that quartet against all the other large land animals of North America.

What Constitutes Comfortable Captivity. It is impossible for any man of good intelligence to work continuously with a wild animal without learning something of its thoughts and its temper.

In our Zoological Park, day by day and hour by hour our people carry into practical effect their knowledge of the psychology of our mammals, birds and reptiles. In view of the work that we have done during the past twenty-one years of the Park's history, we do not need to apologize for claiming to know certain definite things about wild animal minds. It is my belief that nowhere in the world is there in one place so large an aggregation of dangerous beasts, birds and reptiles as ours. And yet accidents to our keepers from them have been exceedingly few, and all have been slight save four.

Twenty-five years ago I endeavored to plan for the Zoological Society the most humane and satisfactory bear dens on earth. Fortunately we knew something about bears, both wild and captive. Never before have we written out the exact motif of those dens, but it is easily told. We endeavored to give each bear the following things:

A very large and luxurious den, open to the sky, and practically on a level with the world;

Perfect sanitation;

A great level playground of smooth concrete;

High, sloping rocks to climb upon when tired of the level floor;

A swimming pool, always full and always clean;

Openwork steel partitions between cages, to promote sociability and cheerfulness;

Plenty of sunlight, but an adequate amount of shade;

Dry and dark sleeping dens with wooden floors, and

Close-up views of all bears for all visitors.

If there are anywhere in the wilds any bears as healthy, happy and as secure in their life tenure as ours, I do not know of them. The wild bear lives in hourly fear of being shot, and of going to bed hungry.

The service of our bear dens is based upon our knowledge of bear psychology. We knew in the beginning that about 97 per cent of our bears would come to us as cubs, or at least when quite young, and we decided to take full advantage of that fact. All our bears save half a dozen all told, have been trained to permit the keepers of the dens to go into their cages, and to make no fuss about it. The bears know that when the keepers enter to do the morning housework, or at any other time for any other purpose, they must at once climb up to the gallery, above the sleeping dens, and stay there until the keepers retire. A bear who is slow about going up is sternly ordered to "Go on!" and if he shows any inclination to disobey, a heavy hickory pick-handle is thrown at him with no uncertain hand.

Now, in grooming a herd of bears, a hickory pick-handle leaves no room for argument. If it hits, it hurts. If it does not hit a bear, it strikes the concrete floor or the rocks with a resound and a rebound that frightens the boldest bear almost as much as being hit. So the bear herd wisely climbs up to the first balcony and sits down to wait. No bear ever leaps down to attack a keeper. The distance and the jolt are not pleasant; and whenever a bear grows weary and essays to climb down, he is sternly ordered back. The keepers are forbidden to permit any familiarities on the part of their bears.

All the bears, save one, that have come to us fully grown, and savage, have been managed by other methods, involving shifting cages.

On two occasions only have any of our keepers been badly bitten in our bear dens. Both attacks were due to over-trustfulness of "petted" bears, and to direct disobedience of fixed orders.

From the very beginning I laid down this law for our keepers, and have repeated it from year to year.

"Make no pets of animals large enough to become dangerous. Make every animal understand and admit day by day that you are absolute master, that it has got to obey, and that if it disobeys, or attacks you, you will kill it!"

Familiarity with a dangerous wild animal usually breeds contempt and attack.

Timidity is so fatal that none but courageous and determined men should be chosen, or be permitted, to take care of dangerous animals.

In every zoological garden heroic deeds are common; and the men take them all as coming in the day's work. Men in positions of control over zoological parks and gardens should recognize it as a solemn duty to provide good salaries for all men who take care of live wild mammals, birds and reptiles. A man who is in daily danger of getting hurt should not every waking hour of his life be harried and worried by poverty in his home.

Let me cite one case of real heroism in our bear dens, which went in with "the day's work," as many others have done. Keeper Fred Schlosser thought it would be safe to take our official photographer, Mr. E. R. Sanborn, into the den of a European brown bear mother, to get a close-up photograph of her and her cubs. Schlosser felt sure that Brownie was "all right," and that he could prevent any accident.

But near the end of the work the mother bear drove her cubs into their sleeping den and then made a sudden, vicious and most unexpected attack upon Keeper Schlosser. She rushed him, knocked him down, seized him by his thigh, bit him severely, and then actually began to drag him to the door of her sleeping den! (Just why she did this I cannot explain!)

Heroically ignoring the great risk to himself, and thinking of nothing but saving Schlosser, Mr. Sanborn seized the club that had fallen from the keeper's hand when he fell, rushed up to the enraged bear and beat her over the head so savagely and so skilfully that she was glad to let go of her victim and retreat into her den. Then Mr. Sanborn seized Schlosser, dragged him away from the den, and stood guard over him until help came.



XIII

MENTAL TRAITS OF A FEW RUMINANTS

When we wish to cover with a single word the hoofed and horned "big game" of the world, we say Ruminants. That easy and comprehensive name embraces (1) the Bison and Wild Cattle, (2) the Sheep, Goats, Ibexes and Markhors, (3) the Deer Family and (4) the Antelope Family. These groups must be considered separately, because the variations in mind and temperament are quite well marked; but beyond wisdom in self-preservation, I do not regard the intelligence of wild ruminants as being really great.

Intellectually the ruminants are not as high as the apes and monkeys, bears, wolves, foxes and dogs, the domestic horses and the elephants. They are handicapped by feet that are good for locomotion and defense, but otherwise are almost as helpless as so many jointed sticks. This condition closes to the ruminants the possibility of a long program of activities which the ruminant brain might otherwise develop. The ruminant hoof and leg is well designed for swift and rough travel, for battles with distance, snow, ice, mud and flood, and for a certain amount of fighting, but they are inept for the higher manifestations of brain power.

Because of this unfortunate condition, the study of ruminants in captivity does not yield a great crop of results. The free wild animals are far better subjects, and it is from them that we have derived our best knowledge of ruminant thoughts and ways. It is not possible, however, to set forth here any more than a limited number of representative species.

THE BISON AND WILD CATTLE. The American Bison.—Through the age- long habit of the American bison to live in large herds, and to feel, generation after generation, the sense of personal security that great numbers usually impart, the bison early acquired the reputation of being a stolid or even a stupid animal. Particularly was this the case in the days of the greatest bison destruction, when a still-hunter could get "a stand" on a bunch of buffaloes quietly grazing at the edge of the great mass, and slowly and surely shoot down each animal that attempted to lead that group away from the sound of his rifle.

During that fatal period the state of the buffalo mind was nothing less than a tragedy. "The bunch" would hear a report two hundred yards away, they would see a grazing cow suddenly and mysteriously fall, struggle, kick the air, and presently lie still. The individuals nearest dully wondered what it was all about. Those farthest away looked once only, and went on grazing. If an experienced old cow grew suspicious and wary, and quietly set out to walk away from those mysterious noises, "bang!" said the Mystery once more, and she would be the one to fall. On this murderous plan, a lucky and experienced hunter could kill from twenty to sixty head of buffaloes, mostly cows, on a space of three or four acres. The fatal trouble was that each buffalo felt that the presence of a hundred or a thousand others feeding close by was an insurance of security to the individual, and so there was no stampede.

But after all, the bison is not so big a fool as he looks. He can think; and he can learn.

In 1886, when we were about to set out for Montana to try to find a few wild buffaloes for the National Museum, before the reckless cowboys could find, kill and waste absolutely the last one, a hilarious friend said:

"Pshaw! You don't need to take any rifles! Just get a rusty old revolver, mount a good, sensible horse, ride right up alongside the lumbering old beasts, and shoot them down at arm's length." We went; but not armed with "a rusty old revolver." We found a few buffaloes, but ye gods! How changed they were from the old days! Although only two short years had elapsed since the terminal slaughter of the hundreds of thousands whose white skeletons then thickly dotted the Missouri-Yellowstone divide, they had learned fear of man, and also how to preserve themselves from that dangerous wild beast. They sought the remotest bad lands, they hid in low grounds, they watched sharply during every daylight hour, and whenever a man on horseback was sighted they were off like a bunch of racers, for a long and frantic run straight away from the trouble-maker. Even at a distance of two miles, or as far as they could see a man, they would run from him,—not one mile, or two, but five miles, or seven or eight miles, to another wild and rugged hiding-place.

To kill the buffalo specimens that we needed, three cowboys and the writer worked hard for nearly three months, and it was all that we could do to outwit those man-scared bison, and to get near enough to them to kill what we required. Many a time, when weary from a long chase, I thought with bitter scorn of my friend with the rusty-old-revolver in his mind. No deer, mountain sheep, tiger, bears nor elephants,—all of which I have pursued (and sometimes overtaken!)—were ever more wary or keen in self- preservation than those bison who at last had broken out from under the fatal spell of herd security. I am really glad that this strange turn of Fortune's wheel gave me the knowledge of the true scope of the buffalo mind before the last chance had passed.

What did a wild buffalo do when he found himself with a broken leg, and unable to travel, but otherwise sound? Did he go limping about over the landscape, to attract enemies from afar, and be quickly shot by a man or torn to pieces by wolves? Not he! With the keen intelligence of the wounded wild ruminant, he chose the line of least resistance, and on three legs fled downhill. He went on down, and kept going, until he reached the bottom of the biggest and most tortuous coulee in his neighborhood. And then what? Instead of coming to rest in a reposeful little valley a hundred feet wide, he chose the most rugged branch he could find, the one with the steepest and highest banks, and up that dry bed, with many a twist and turn, he painfully limped his way. At last he found himself in a snug and safe ditch, precisely like a front line trench seven feet wide, with perpendicular walls and zig- zagging so persistently that the de'il himself could not find him save by following him up to close quarters, and landing upon his horns. There, without food or water, the wounded animal would stand for many days,—in fact, until hunger would force him back to the valley's crop of grass. His wild remedy was to keep still, and give that broken leg its chance to knit and grow strong.