MORE ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18949, 21 February 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

MORE ANIMALS.

ELEPHANT TO CROCODILE.

BY KOT.VRK.

The elephant was early subdued to the service of men. Pyrrhus, crossing the lonian Sea to succour the townsfolk of Tarentum, at death-grips with Home, transported a sufficient' number of elephants to throw the Roman Legions into utter confusion and to stampede in a frenzy of terror every horse attached to the 'Roman army. There is little doubt, that contact with an advanced civilisation has profoundly influenced the. Asiatic elephant. Man, having subdued himself, finds that ho has won to the mastery of the beasts of the field. Where man has not gained control of the beast in himself he has found himself singularly helpless before, the wild animals of the, jungle. That seems to be, the law. Civilised peoples have a much wider control: they can tame animals that will do nothing for the savage. You have only to see the difference, between the average Indian elephant—'My Lord the, Elephant —and such a huge mass of surly incompetence as the average African elephant. (here is one in the Cairo Zoo, in stature like the side of a house, and his sole accomplishment a salaam with his trunk at a piastre a time. The. fault is not with Ihe elephant, but with the cultural standards of the races that have for centuries been (he elephants, only human neighbours. Contact with man will not inevitably reduce the animal of the wild to subjection. That depends more on the man than on the beast. The Elephant. The elephant was a beast of wonder to the simple medieval mind. In many ways he was accounted the superior of man. That is practically the Indian point of view to-day. He was even given credit for a religion of his own. To quote Bartholomew, the Englishman once more: "When the elephants lie sick j they gather good herbs, and ere they use the herbs they heave up the bead ! and look up toward heaven and pray for I help of God in a certain religion." They were apparently good mono theists, but the chronicler is discreetly vague in recounting this marvel. In their wild state, they were the guardians of man. If a man lost his way in the wilderness, they would approach with due deference, taking every precaution not to alarm the wanderer, and then would carefully direct him to tl;c right path. The favourite method of capture was not unlike, the usual device for catching unicorns. The hunter went out armed with a saw. The elephant, took his noonday nap leaning up against a tree. When lie found a tree that gave, him comfort and security in his slumbers, he invariably returned to it at the siesta houi\ The hunter sawed the tree from the otherside, and left it still upright, and to i.U appearance's as strong and safe as ever. The elephant closed his eyes and leaned against it, as so ofton before. But there was a sudden rending of timbers as the tree collapsed, and the unsuspecting beast found himself on his back pawing the air like a puppy. The themy was that once be was on .his back be could never achieve again *he upright- position, and it was a simple matter for the hunter to make an end. Indian Wonders. It was usually .safe to assign any marvel that, might tax even the medieval capacity for absorption to India or Ethiopia. Anything could happen there, and there was no chance, cither of verification or of disproof. Bartholomew decribes in detail an li.dian monster that makes the dragon as commonplace as a barn-door fowl. "In India is a beast wonderly shapen, and is like to the bear in body and in hair, and to a man in face. And hath a right, red head, and a full great mouth, and ar. horrible, and in either jaw three rows of teeth distinguished atwecn. The outer limbs be. as it were, the outer limbs of a. lion, and his tail is like to a wild scorpion, with a sting, and he hath an horrible voice, as the voice of a trumpet, and he runneth full swiftly, and cateth men. And this beast is called Barieos." No animal has rendered mankind better service than the despised ass. Bartholomew feels something of the tragedy of its fate, but he can find nothing to say in its favour. He dubs if " a melancholy beast, that is cold and dry, and is therefore by nature heavy and slow, dull and witless'and forgetful." It took a St. Francis to realise the. soul of "our brother the ass." Man has persisted in usin<' it as the symbol of ineptitude and folly" a byword to express his contempt. And this'after centuries of uncomplaining service. Chesterton has given the modern apology for the ass in one of the finest poems of our time.

The tattered outlaw of tho earth. Of ancient, crooked will;. Starve, scourge, deride me, 1 am dumb. I keep mv secret, still. Fools' For 1 also hod my hour. One far fierce.hour and sweet: There was a, shout about, mv ears. And palms before my feet. The Dog. The dog is the only animal of the wild that has unreservedly given its love and loyalty to man. You remember what Maeterlinck makes of that in his "Blue Bird." All the other beasts man has tamed long for their liberty, the overthrow of the tyrant. Their's is an unwilling servitude based on fear, or on what thev can get by subjecting themselves to the will of man. Always there is mingled with their fear a bitter hatred and contempt. But the dog has surrendered bis heart. He alone is the friend of man, offering his service out of love, with no thought of reward and no bitterness for ill-treatment. That his master should bo satisfied is the one goal of his striving. So Maeterlinck makes the other animals regard the dog as a traitor to his kind, and in tho revolt against man, leaves the dog alone faithful to him. That is exactly Bartholomew's point of view. To the men of medieval times tho dog was even more than he is to the men of to-day: man's first conquest in the animal world, man's greatest trophy in Ihe long war against, tho lower creation. No dog-lover to-day could wish for a more satisfying eulogy than Bartholomew has left, in his ancient book. Two more examples and we can leave the Middle, Ages. " These beasts cut rods and sticks with their teeth and bring them home to their dens in a wonder wise, for they lay one of them upright on the ground instead of a sled or of a dray, with his legs and feet reared upward, and lay on him the load the sticks and wood between his legs and thighs and draw him home to their dens and unload and discharge him there." This intelligent animal, who seems to bear some resemblance to the beaver, has a tail of " the fishy kind which may not without water be long kepi, without corruption." So each member of the tribe digs a hole in the ground big enough to accommodate its tail, and there it sits in state and at its ease, with its tail in water. Of the crocodile thus it is written: " If the. crocodile, findeth a man by the brim of the water, be slayeth him if be may, and then be, weepeth upon him and swallowetb him at the last." Wherefore we still sjieak- -o-l .'.'cjaoadil&- tears^'