Animal Intelligence

Abstract

SEVERAL remarkable instances of intelligence in animals have been given in recent numbers of NATURE. Possibly the following instance of reasoning power in an elephant may not be without interest:—Some years ago I was ascending the lower part of the Darjeeling Hill Road, in the Himalaya Mountains, from Terai. At a certain part of the road, where we met a string of bullock carts, the outer few feet was encumbered by a long flat-topped heap of small rounded boulders, piled there to be broken up for road metal; from the outer edge there was a steep, almost precipitous, slope. On the inner side of the road was a small drain, and then a few feet of comparatively level ground between the drain and the slope above. The carts just mentioned were of the usual kind, the body (constructed of bamboo) about 12 feet long and 31/2 feet broad, with the wheels near the middle, each cart being drawn by a pair of bullocks. The mahaut (driver) of the elephant I was riding having halted the animal close up to the heap of boulders, there was just room left between the elephant and the chain for the carts to pass. These carts were the ordinary vehicles of the country, and under ordinary circumstances an elephant would no more think of “shying” at them than a London dray horse would think of shying at a cab. Yet as the carts went by one by one my elephant became more and more uneasy, and finally, in spite of the efforts of the mahaut to restrain her, mounted on the heap of boulders, at the risk (which, considering how cautious elephants are in treading on suspicious ground, I believe she must have seen quite as clearly as the mahaut or I) of rolling down the slope below the road, if the rounded boulders shifted and gave way beneath her weight. It was some time before I perceived the cause of her fear. Elephants, even in India, are uncommon, and bullocks, as well as other domestic animals, generally feel considerable dread of them from their unusual appearance as well as their size. The bullocks in question were greatly frightened at having to pass so close to the bulky brute, and several of them in passing tried to get away from her by jumping the drain. It required all the efforts of the drivers to prevent their doing it. The elephant evidently saw that the bullocks were frightened and that they were trying to jump the drain, and she further calculated that if they did so the long tail of the cart would swing sharply round in the opposite direction and strike her violently across the fore legs. Of the two risks she preferred that of mounting on the heap of boulders.