Who’s Who At The Zoo NELLIKUTHA THE ELEPHANT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 300, 15 September 1936, Page 13

Who’s Who At The Zoo NELLIKUTHA THE ELEPHANT

(By

J.E.N.)

LONDONERS have erected in Kensington Gardens, a little statue to Peter Pan. He represents, for them, the spirit of eternal youth, and through wind and rain and the fitful sunshine of that colourful city, goes piping a message from the golden years of childhood. Should we in Wellington ever wish to do likewise, it seems we might have to cast our statue in a larger mould, for this spirit undoubtedly exist® in the character of - Nellikutha, our Zoo elephant. Neill weighs around 90001 b., about as much as a bus; and she manages to keep this great hulk in good condition on two buckets of mash and a bale of oaten sheaf a day. Compared weight for weight with what the domestic cow will eat in 24 hours, this is extremely little, but then cows are not dancers. Whenever Nelli has a moment to spare you may find her rocking back and forth with a motion that is full of poise and dignity. Two steps forward and pause with left foot raised, then two steps backwards and again that graceful left leg movement. It is a simple dance showing an infinite delicacy of balance and rhythm, but it has its mystic qualities. Those great feet move so softly, vlcitors come and go unnoticed. perhaps the walls of her house have vanished and the dusty plains or the jungle taken their place; perhaps there is the music of tropic night, and the thunder of the charging herd in the hypnotic, clinking of her double-shack-led chain.

Nelli’s chain is double-shackled because at one time she had a habit of pulling the pin out of her single shackle in order to wander about the gardens on her own. This habit, while it might be fully understood by her guardians, would possibly have caused some anxiety, not to say apprehension, amongst any visitors she chanced to meet, since it Is unlikely that she would have brought along her mouth-organ to charm away their fears. This mouthorgan, together with her balancing tubs and in a lesser degree her saddle, are all part of Nelli's stock-in-trade as a public entertainer. She can be induced to play very nicely on the harmonica and is so fond of doing her balancing act on the tubs, that they

have to be kept out of her reach for fear she may hurt herself practising on them in private while she ia shackled. Nelli is passionately fond of children, and a youngster who had been thrilled by a ride on her hospitable back, afterwards patted her leathery hide to show his appreciation. He said it was like patting a brick wall and thought she would have been better pleased with a bun or some peanuts. I doubt it, for an elephant’s skin, in splte of its toughness and apparent lack of feeling, is really a network of fine nerves; and almost as sensitive as a human being’s. This is very evident from the joy with which Nelli receives the caresses of her well-beloved keeper. In summer Nelli and her keeper go bathing together, and there follows a great deal of delightful tomfoolery, much splashing and squirting of water as she is groomed with a long-handled broom.

Nelli was born about the time of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which perhaps accounts for her kindly tolerance of mankind in general. She was captured wild in the district after which she is named, in India, and came to Wellington in 1927. As she is weii cared for and of a happy and contented disposition, there is every possibility that she will live to see the turn of the century, and who, knows, play for and carry around the great grand-children of the kiddies who first rode her.

But somehow, I do not think she will ever really grow old. there will always be that roguish twinkle in her little yellow eyes that makes her the friend of grown-ups and children alike, ‘She will blow her mouth-organ down the ages as Peter Pan blows his pipe, and steal her moments of light-hearted clowning in much the same manner as he will continue to dance across the stage, and perhaps, like him, she will help weary mortals to believe at times in fairies.

Nelli is highly intelligent and an undoubted humourist, and for this reason is never lonely. She is always on the lookout for the next visitor, and the forward thrust of those great ears-and the curl of her questing sensitive trunk is perhaps the most candid and sincere welcome this city has to offer.