hurry. He has a fine and
delicate exploring organ in his trunk, with its hand-like termination;
with this he can, and does, experiment and builds up his individual
knowledge and experience. Elephants act together in the wild state,
aiding one another to uproot trees too large for one to deal with
alone. They readily understand and accept the guidance of man, and
with very small persuasion and teaching execute very dextrous
work--such as the piling of timber. If man had selected the more
intelligent elephants for breeding over a space of a couple of
thousand years a prodigy of animal intelligence would have resulted.
But man has never "bred" the elephant at all.

The Greeks and Romans knew ivory first, and then became acquainted
with the elephant. The island of Elephantina in the Nile was from the
earliest times a seat of trade in the ivory tusks of the African
elephant, and so acquired its name. Herodotus is the first to mention
the elephant itself; Homer only refers to the ivory by the word
"elephas." Aristotle in this, as in other matters, is more correct
than later writers. He probably received first-hand information about
the elephant from Alexander and some of his men after their Indian
expedition. The Romans had an unpleasant first personal experience of
elephants when Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, landed a number with his army
and put the Roman soldiers to flight. But the Romans then, and
continually in after-times, showed their cool heads and sound judgment
in a certain contempt for elephants as engines of war. They soon
learned to dig pits on the battlefield to entrap the great beasts, and
they deliberately made for the elephants' trunks, hewing them through
with their swords, so that the agonised and maddened creatures turned
round and trampled down the troops of their own side. The Romans only
used them subsequently to terrify barbaric people, and as features in
military processions. But Eastern nations used them extensively in
war. In A.D. 217 Antiochus the Great brought 217 elephants in his army
against 73 employed by Ptolemy, at what was called "the Battle of the
Elephants." The battle commenced by the charging head to head of the
opposing elephants and the discharge of arrows, spears and stones by
the men in the towers on their backs.

An interesting question has been raised as to whether the elephants
used by the Carthaginians were the African species or the Indian.
There is no doubt that the elephants of P