Now that the mammoth is extinct, the elephant is the largest of all animals living and the strongest. It Is a strange-looking animal, with its thick legs, huge sides and back, large hanging ears, small tail, little eyes, long white tusks, and, above all, its long nose, called the trunk. The trunk is the elephant's peculiar feature, and it puts it to various uses. It draws up water by its trunk and can squirt it all over its body like a shower bath, and with it, it picks leaves from the trees and puts them into its mouth. In fact, its trunk serves the elephant as a long arm and hand. Elephants look very clumsy and heavy, and yet they can move very quickly when they like.
Elephants are found in India and Africa. The African elephant differs from the Indian, being larger, with longer tusks and bigger ears. In fact, the two are considered to be different species. They live in herds in the jungles in both countries and are naturally shy animals that keep away from men. With their great size and strength, elephants are a fine advertisement for vegetarianism, for they live entirely on leaves of trees, grass, roots, and bulbs.
The elephant is a brilliant animal, and its intelligence, combined with its great strength, makes it, when tamed, a handy servant to man, and it has been trained to serve in various ways.
Elephants can carry heavy loads, about a thousand seers each, and they are used to draw heavy wagons and big guns that require many horses. They are very skillful, too, in piling timber. The trained elephant will kneel, lift a heavy log of wood with its tusks, carry it to the places where it is wanted, and lay it exactly in position.
Elephants are also trained for tiger hunting. The huntsmen sit in the howdah on the back of the elephant, driven and guided by the driven, called the mahout, who squats on its neck. In this way, the hunters are carried through the thickest and height so that they can see and fire at the tiger when it is driven out.
In the old days, elephants were used in battles, and all Indian Rajas had their regiments of trained fighting elephants. They still have their place in state processions, painted with bright colors and covered with silk and velvet clothes.
In Africa, elephants are hunted mainly for their tusks, made of ivory and ar, every valuable.
Their skins are so thick that an ordinary bullet will not pierce them, and so large guns, called elephant guns, are used to kill the animals.
Many elephants are caught alive to be tamed and trained. But catching elephants alive is difficult and dangerous work, for, though the elephant is a shy, wild animal when left alone, it can be a dangerous enemy when attacked. Elephants are generally caught alive in great traps or enclosures, called keddahs. They are either driven into these keddahs or led by tame elephants, called decoys, trained to lead their wild brothers into captivity.
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