Our circus carries a herd of twenty-five elephants and most of them are trained in all sorts of difficult elephant performances, a task requiring patience and perseverance, and a close and continuous study of the nature of each individual animal. Of all beasts, the elephant is probably the most sagacious. He never forgets. Trainers aver that after a lapse of half a century the elephant will conduct his performance as perfectly as if but twenty-four hours had gone by. Their value to a circus rests not merely upon the attraction of their ring exhibition. Their great strength makes them useful when heavy wagons defy the straining efforts of horses, and they are frequently called into other service which requires unusual power. The application of the broad head gives motion to the most obstinately stationary vehicle, and often extricates the show from annoying plight and delay. There are two distinct species of elephants. The Asiatic differs from the African, not only in its greater size and in the characteristics of the teeth and skull, but also in the comparative small form of the ears, the pale-brown color of skin and in having four nails on the hind feet instead of three. The intelligence of the former class is greater, too, than that of the African brute, whose head is much shorter, the forehead convex and the ears of great breadth and magnitude, covering nearly a sixth of the entire body. The average term of an elephant’s life is probably about eighty years, and he is not in possession of full vigor and strength until more than thirty years old. An approximate idea of the age can be gained by the amount of turn-over of the upper edge of the ear. The edge is quite straight until the animal is eight or nine years old; then it begins to turn over. By the time the beast is thirty the edges lap over to the extent of an inch; and between this age and sixty the droop increases to two inches or more. Extravagant ideas are held as to the height of an elephant. Such a thing as an elephant measuring twelve feet at the shoulder does not exist in India or Burmah. An authority on the subject says the largest male he ever met with measured nine feet ten inches, and the tallest female eight feet five inches. The majority of elephants, however, are below eight feet, and an animal rarely reaches nine feet, the female being slightly shorter than the male. The carcass of an elephant seven feet four inches tall, weighed in portions, gave a total weight of thirty-nine hundred pounds; so an elephant weighing two tons should be common enough. The skin was about three-quarters of an inch to one inch thick.