Of the anecdotes with which Plutarch enlivens his pages, he says himself that he puts on one side fable and mythology, and limits his choice to the “all true” category, and if he appears to be at times a little credulous, one may well believe that he is always candid. Just as in his “Lives” he tried to ennoble his readers by making noble deeds interesting, so in his writings on animals, he tried to make people humane by making his dumb clients interesting. He did not start with thinking the task an easy one, for he was convinced that man is more cruel than the most savage of wild beasts. But he aims at pouring, if not a full draught of mercy, at least some drops, into the heart that never felt a pang, the mind that never gave a thought. Many of his stories are taken straight from the common street life of the Rome of his day, as that of the elephant which passed every day along a certain street where the schoolboys teased it by pricking its trunk with their writing stylets (men may come and go, but the small boy is a fixed quantity!). At last, the elephant, losing patience, picked up one of his tormentors and hoisted him in the air; a cry of horror rose from the spectators, no one doubted that in another moment the child would be dashed to the ground. But the elephant set the offender down very gently and walked away, thinking, no doubt, that a good fright had been a sufficient punishment. The Syrian elephant, of whom Plutarch tells how he made his master understand that in his absence he had been cheated of half his rations, was not cleverer than some of his kind on service in India, who would not begin to eat till all three cakes which formed their rations were set before each of them—a fact that was told me by the officer whose duty it was to preside at their dinner. Plutarch speaks of counting oxen that knew when the number of turns was finished which constituted their daily task at a saw-mill: they refused to perform one more turn than the appointed figure. As an instance of the discrimination of animals, he tells how Alexander’s horse, Bucephalus, when unsaddled, would allow the grooms to mount him, but when he had on all his rich caparisons, no one on earth could get on his back except his royal master. There is no doubt that animals take notice of dress. I have been told that when crinolines were worn, all the dogs barked at any woman not provided with one. Plutarch was among the earliest to observe that animals discover sooner than man when ice will not bear, which he thinks that they find out by noticing if there is any sound of running water. He says truly that to draw such an inference presupposes not only sharp ears, but a real power of weighing cause and effect. Plutarch mentions foxes as particularly clever in this respect, but dogs possess the same gift. The French Ambassador at Rome—who, like all persons of superior intelligence, is very fond of animals—told me the following story.