SOME CLEVER ELEPHANTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 53, 11 June 1910, Page 9

SOME CLEVER ELEPHANTS.

STACK TIMBER AND WORK AS

BRICKLAYERS.

Although there has been some attempt to ridicule the objects of a sociey in Paris called "The Friends of the Elephant." which recently held its first general meeting, there is' much evidence to show that the members are quite right in their contention that bio-n;, rtlo hunters are exterminating a race of animals, which if caught and" properly trained, would .prove of the greatest value to man: According to M. Gaston Tournier. the genera] secretary of the society, 50,000_ elephants are'killed every year by big-game hunter?, irrespective of those killed by natives.

There are still some 350.000 elephants in Africa, which, if made to work for a living, would be worth something like £40.000.000. If dead thev would onh be worth « matter of £5.000.000. ''The Friends of the Elephants,"' therefore, want to .put .an end to the killing, and to show that wholesale slaughter of the elephant is a colossal mistake. For. as they point out, one domesticated and well-trained elephant can do the work ot thirty men. In fact, properly applied, one elephant could run a good-sized farm. AX ELEPHANT FARM.

As recently stated in the journal of the Royal Society of Arts, one oi the great obstacles to agricultural development in the equatorial districts of Africa is the difficulty of .procuring beasts of burden. Horses have been tried in vain, and oxen soon become useless. That is why the experiment which is being carried on by Commandant Laplune at Api, in the Congo Free State, is being watched with keen interest. The commandant has started an elephant farm, and now possesses some fifty trained elephants., They are captured quite young, and so far from being intractable, as many .people imagine "elephants to be, they prove willing and wonderful workers.

Tliey are broken in just like horses. The driver, getting on good terms with the animal, first mounts her in tue stable. The next step is to put on some simple harness, by which two baskets may be carried on either side, and these are filled with loads. After this a 'breast-band is used, and the elephant begins to draw a light tree-trunk, then a little cart, and finally a heavy waggon. In the case of carts and waggons rite animals are generally harnessed in .pairs, but for ploughing they are driven singly. OF ASSISTANCE TO HUNTERS.

Furthermore, they are.trained to assist the hunters in catching other elephants: and the story is told of a female elephant which had been trained as a decoy—a fact of which its owner was not aware—which disappeared for some days. About a week later she returned, and led the way to a,spot where a maie elephant was discovered, round whose legs, secured in the most approved fashion to four' trees, was the iron chain she was usually fastened with to her own own picket at night-time. Apparently she was resolved to resume her old employment, and had consequently set about carrying on the profession on her own account, thus securing one of the finest elephants that had been taken for many years. In Eastern countries elephants do wonderful work in the way of dragging and sorting timber and in breaking up obstructions caused /by logs and miscellaneous flotsam in streams. Colonel P. T. Poll ok says he has-often watched-the elephants in a timber yard, and the human way in which they -will test the weight of a log requires to he seen to be credited. The tusked will lift up one end with his trunk, and, if he deems it within his power to lift the whole, he will shift his trunk gradually until he gets to the exact centre, then by kneeling down he will roll the log on to his tusks and will carry it either to he stacked or to the sawmill.

ELEPHANTS AS BUILDERS.

In tea estates the elephants are occasionally employed to (help in building construction by keeping the masons supplied with blocks of stone, and if the wall be not too high they will not only take the block up, but lay it quite ct*rectly in its proper place. A Ceylon elephant used regularly to lay stones in this way under the orders of an overseer, to whom he used to signal to inspect and "pass" tihe work done and to give permission for fresh courses to be be laid.

On one occasion the elephant 'placed himself against part of the wall, thus preventing the overseer from examining that part of the job. The latter, however, insisted on tihe animal moving aside, and the elephant, seeing his ruse had failed ,at once began to pull down the wall which he had just built, and which he waa quite aware was badly done, at the very spot where he had' tried to conceal it from (his master. A Burmese ship captain also tells a story of a female elephant which, while anchored off the coast, he frequently saw come out of the jungle to bathe in the sea, accompanied by (her youngster. The little chap used to keep in the shallow water while the mother ventured farther out; ibut one morning, while his parent was not looking, the youngster got beyond his depth, became frightened, and made a great to-do. The mother pulled him ashore and gave him a good spanking with her trunk. Each succeeding morning the little one was compelled to stand on the bank wihile the mother first bathed herself and afterwards washed him down with water fetched, in her trunk.