thought. The ring on his tusk was his own invention, as a means to
a desired end.

Every elephant that we ever have had has become, through his own
initiative and experimenting, an expert in unfastening the latches
of doors and gates, and in untying chains and ropes. Gunda always
knew enough to attack the padlocks on his leg chains, and break
them if possible. No ordinary clevis would hold him. When the pin
was threaded at one end and screwed into its place, Gunda would
work at it, hour by hour, until he would start it to unscrewing,
and then his trunk-tip would do the rest. The only clevis that he
could not open was one in which a stout cotter pin was passed
through the end of the clevis-pin and strongly bent.

Through reasons emanating in his own savage brain, Gunda took
strong dislikes to several of our park people. He hated Dick
Richards,--the keeper of Alice. He hated a certain messenger boy,
a certain laborer, a painter and Mr. Ditmars. Toward me he was
tolerant, and never rushed at me to kill me, as he always did to
his pet aversions. He stood in open fear of his own keeper, Walter
Thuman, until he had studied out a plan to catch him off his guard
and "get him." Then he launched his long-contemplated attack, and
Thuman was almost killed.

Our present (1921) male African elephant, Kartoum, is not so
hostile toward people, but his insatiable desire is to break and
to smash all of his environment that can be bent or broken. His
ingenuity in finding ways to damage doors and gates, and to bend
or to break steel beams, is amazing. His greatest feat consisted
in breaking squarely in two, by pushing with his head, a 90-pound