many times. Our bad elephant, Gunda, was bad by nature, but
finally he became afflicted with sexual insanity, for which there
was no cure. When commanded by man, the elephant will tear a
criminal limb from limb, or crush him to death with his knees, or
go out to battle holding a sword in his trunk. He will, when told
to do so, attack his kind with fury and persistence; but in the
course of many hours, and even days, spent in watching wild herds,
I never yet saw a single individual show any signs of impatience
or ill-temper toward his fellows.

It is safe to say that, thus far, not one half the elephant's
mental capabilities have been developed, or even understood. It
would be of great interest to determine by experiment the full
educational capacity of this interesting quadruped. It would be
equally interesting to determine the limit of its reasoning
powers in applied mechanics. An animal that can turn a hand-organ
at the proper speed, or ring a telephone and go through the
motions of listening with a receiver, can be taught to push a
smoothing-plane invented purposely for him; but whether he would
learn of himself to plane the rough surface smooth, and let the
smooth ones remain untouched, is an open question.

While it is generally fruitless and unsatisfactory to enter the
field of speculation, I can not resist the temptation to assert my
belief that an elephant can be taught to read written characters,
and also to express some of his own thoughts or states of feeling
in writing. It would be a perfectly simple matter to prepare
suitable appliances by which the sagacious animal could hold a
crayon in his trunk, and mark upon a surface adapted to his
convenience. Many an elephant has been taught to make chalk-marks