and mental processes of an animal.

To me the most impressive feature of a performance of elephants in
the circus-ring is the fact that every command uttered is obeyed
with true military promptness and freedom from hesitation, and so
accurately that an entire performance often is conducted and
concluded without the repetition of a single command. One by one
the orders are executed with the most human-like precision and
steadiness, amounting sometimes to actual nonchalance. Human
beings of the highest type scarcely could do better. To some
savage races--for example, the native Australians, the Veddahs of
Ceylon, or the Jackoons of the Malay Peninsula, I believe that
such a performance would be impossible, even under training. I do
not believe their minds act with sufficient rapidity and accuracy
to enable a company of them to go through with such a wholly
artificial performance as successfully as the elephants do.

The thoughtful observer does not need to be told that the brain of
the ponderous quadruped acts, as far as it goes, with the same
rapidity and precision as that of an intelligent man,--and this,
too, in a performance that is wholly artificial and acquired.
In the performance of Bartholomew's horses, of which I once kept a
record in detail, even the most accomplished members of his troupe
often had to be commanded again and again before they would obey.
A command often was repeated for the fifth or sixth time before
the desired result was obtained. I noted particularly that not one
of his horses,--which were the most perfectly trained of any ever
seen by me,--was an exception to this rule, or performed his
tasks with the prompt obedience and self-confidence so noticeable
in _each one_ of the sixteen Barnum elephants. The horses