The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal ObservationsHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Science
The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
Animal behavior
"Of course the elephant was killed by the shock, its head being
completely smashed.... It is believed that this particular rogue
had been responsible for considerable damage to villages in the
vicinity of Lopbusi. A number of houses have been pulled down
recently and havoc wrought in other ways."
On another occasion a vicious rogue elephant elected to try
conclusions with a railway train. In 1906, on the Korat branch of
the Siamese State Railway, a bull elephant attacked a freight
train running at full speed. He charged the rushing locomotive,
with the result that the locomotive and several cars were derailed
and sent down the side of the grade, and two persons were killed.
The elephant was killed outright and buried under the wreck of the
train. This occurred in open country, where there was no excuse
for an elephant on the track, and therefore the charge of the
rogue was wholly gratuitous.
Captive elephants whose managers are too humane to punish them for
manifestations of meanness become spoiled by their immunity, just
as mean children are spoiled when fond and foolish parents feel
that their little jackets are too sacred ever to be tanned. Such
complete immunity is as bad for bad elephants as for bad
children, but in practice the severe punishment of an elephant
with real benefit to the animal is next door to an impossibility,
and so we never attempt it. We do, however, inflict mild
punishments, of the fourth order of efficiency.
Animals and Men. Among the animals that are most courageous
against man are the species and individuals that are most familiar
with him, and feel for him both contempt and hatred. The cat
scratches, the bad dog bites, the vicious horse kicks or bites,
and the mean pet bear, tiger, ape, leopard, bison or deer will
attempt injury or murder whenever they think the chance has
arrived. I know a lady whose pet monkey is a savage and mean
little beast, and because she never thrashes it as it deserves,
both of her arms from wrist to elbow have been scarified by its
teeth.
Mr. E. R. Sanborn, official photographer of the Zoological Park,
once made an ingenious and also terrifying experiment. He made an
excellent dummy keeper, stood it up, and tied it fast against the
fence inside the yard of our very large and savage male Grevy
Zebra. Then he posed his moving picture camera in a safe place,
and the keeper turned the zebra into the yard. The moment the
bad zebra caught sight of the presumptive keeper,--at last within
his power,--he rushed at the dummy with glaring eyes and open
mouth, and seized his victim by the head. With furious efforts he
tore the dummy loose from its moorings, whirled it into the middle
of the yard, where in a towering rage he knelt upon it, bit and
tore its heart out. Of course the unfortunate dummy perished. The
zebra reveled in his triumph, and altogether it was a fearsome
sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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