Baby-elephants also can be taught to play many tricks, such as to sit at table, use the fan, and the like. We are told of two of them named Jock and Jenny, that would come in, bow to the audience, mount on a plank, and see-saw like a couple of children. One of them would then walk on the tops of a double row of bottles. They would also play on an organ and drum, dance to the sound of bells, and do other clever tricks.

If we seek elephant stories of another kind there are a number of cases in which the animals have been hurt and borne surgical treatment with great patience. There is a case where one went blind through some disease in its eyes. Nitrate of silver was applied to one eye and caused so great a pain that the animal roared wildly. But the treatment did the eyes so much good that when the doctor came the next day to try it on the other eye, the animal lay down, placed his head quietly to one side, and drew in his breath as we would do when expecting to be hurt. When it was over he gave a sigh of relief, and showed how grateful he was by movements of his trunk.

This is one out of various tales of this kind that could be told. The elephant here learned by the good done to one eye that he was going to be helped with the other, and made up his mind to bear the pain for the good it would bring him.

Not many animals can learn things without being taught, but the elephant can. One thing a tamed elephant is taught to do is to pick up things from the ground and hand them to the driver on his shoulders. At first he is made to pick up only soft articles, for he is apt to throw them up with force and might hurt the man above.

After a time the animal gets to notice the difference between soft things and hard things. A bundle of clothes may still be thrown up with force, but a hard and heavy thing, such as a piece of iron chain, will be handed up gently. The wise creature learns in time to pick up a sharp knife by its handle and lay it on his head so that the driver can also take it up by the handle, and when made to pick up things it has never seen before it shows that it knows how to deal with them.

We might go on and give many other examples of the mental powers of the elephant, but enough have been given to show that this great creature is one of the most sensible of all beasts and is as quick at learning the best way to do things as any others of the animal tribe. And it can think out things for itself, which shows finer thought than to have them taught it by others.