the traditionary stories of elephant sagacity, that Pidcock, to whom the Exeter Change Menagerie formerly belonged, had, for some years, a custom of treating himself and his elephant in the evening with a glass of spirits, for which the animal regularly looked. Pidcock invariably gave the elephant the first glass out of the bottle, till one night he exclaimed, "You have been served first long enough, and it's my turn now." The proud beast was offended-refused the glass when he was denied his precedence-and never more would join his master in his revelries. An affecting instance of the force of habitual obedience was presented by Chuni, the famous elephant who was shot at Exeter Change. In the greatest access of his fury, when bullets were striking him from every side, he obeyed the voice of his keeper, who ordered him to kneel, in the belief that he might be more easily shot in that position*. In the same way an elephant who became furious at Geneva, in 1820, under circumstances similar to those which led to the death of Chuni, when running wildly about the town, attacking every one who came in his way, yielded the most prompt obedience to the female whose property he was, and suffered himself to be led by her to a place of safety, where he was killed.

The female elephant at Mr. Cross's Menagerie is called Lutchmé. This was the name of an elephant belonging to Captain Williamson, the writer on Oriental sports. The practice of giving names to elephants is of great antiquity, and is almost universal in the east. Thus, the favourite elephant of Porus was called Nicon,-and that of Antiochus, Ajax ;Abulabaz was the name of that which Haroun Alraschid sent to Charlemagne, and Hanno of that

A very interesting account of the death of this elephant is given by Mr. Hone, in his "Every-Day Book," vol. ii. p. 322.

which Emanuel of Portugal presented to Leo X. It was said of the Mogul emperor, Akbar, that he knew all the names of his many thousand elephants. The following is a portrait of Mr. Cross's elephant, when kneeling.

Female Elephant at Mr. Cross's Menagerie.

Whatever interest we may feel in the sagacity which is ordinarily displayed by the elephants of our common English menageries, the wretched state of confinement in which so large an animal is kept prevents us forming any adequate notions of many of its peculiarities. For this reason the recent exhibition of the elephant in a theatre has contri

buted very much to remove some of the popular prejudices concerning the quadruped, and to induce correct ideas of its peculiar movements. We cannot, indeed, upon a stage, see the animal bound about as in a state of nature-roll with delight in the mud, as Bruce has described it doing, to produce a crust upon its body which should be impervious to its tormentors the flies-collect water in its trunk, to spirt over its parched skin-and browse upon the tall branches of trees which it reaches with its proboscis. We shall not see these peculiarities of its native condition, till we have a proper receptacle for the elephant in our national menagerie, the Zoological Gardens. Without imputing blame to those who exhibit the elephant in this country, there is certainly great cruelty in shutting up in a miserable cage a creature who has such delight in liberty, and who is so obedient without be

ing restrained. The fine female elephant at Atkins's menagerie evidently suffers greatly under such severe durance. She has occasionally injured her keeper by pressing him against the wall of her cell, having scarcely room to turn round; and very recently, provoked perhaps by confinement, she deliberately attacked her proprietor, who went into the cage, and wounded him severely. This elephant is ordinarily very tractable; and her countenance, of which we give a portrait, appears to indicate great mildness and intelligence.

The elephants of the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, have, by comparison with the elephants of our close menageries, a life of much happiness. Their cells are spacious; they are let out, at particular periods, to

rangé about a large enclosure; and they have a bath which they enjoy with infinite delight in warm weather. We saw, in 1825, the large male (who is since dead) up to his middle in a pool, in a hot day in August, spouting the water from his trunk with scarcely less joy than he would feel in his native woods. When his bath was finished, he would stand quietly for a little time in the sun;—and then, gathering a quantity of dust in his trunk, blow it over his back till the crevices in his skin were sufficiently covered to be protected against the flies.

The close confinement of the elephant has doubtless a tendency to aggravate those periodical fits of rage to which the males are subject; and, moreover, these fits are much more fearful when the animal is pent up in a narrow cage. The pieces of oak which formed the bars of Chuni's cage were eight or ten inches square,—and yet he snapped them like matches. The elephants of India which are employed in domestic purposes, although subject to these fits, are rarely obliged to be destroyed. They are confined in a secure place till the effect is passed off. Again, elephants in the miserable cages of our menageries are liable not only to accidents, but to diseases which prevent them reaching the great age which is peculiar to this quadruped. The elephant of Louis XIV., which died at Versailles when he was seventeen years old, for the last five years of his life was obliged to be lifted up by a machine, when he lay down, which he rarely did. This was evidently an effect of confinement, which had so weakened the muscular power of his body as to give some probability to the old fable that the elephant, in a state of nature, always sleeps in a standing position against a tree*. Another elephant, which was

* Perrault, Mémoires, tom. ii. p.507.