The elephant, though one of the clumsiest of animals, exhibits marks of high intelligence, and evidently understands the language in which he is addressed. He can be stimulated to unusual exertions by the promise of a reward. “I have seen,” says a French writer, “two occupied in beating down a wall which their keepers had desired them to do and encouraged them by a promise of fruits and brandy.” They were left alone and continued at the work, stimulated by the promised reward, until it was accomplished. “When a reward is promised to an elephant,” says the same author, “it is dangerous to disappoint him, as he never fails to revenge the insult.” Nothing of this could occur without an understanding of the language.
In India they were formerly employed to launch vessels, and it is related that one being directed to force a large ship into the water, the task proved beyond his strength; whereupon his master, in a sarcastic tone, ordered the keeper to take away this lazy beast and bring another; the poor animal, as if stung by emulation, instantly repeated his efforts, fractured his skull and died on the spot.
It may be said that the tones of the voice rather than the words are what the animal understands, yet a dog knows his name however spoken, and a horse understands a whole vocabulary of orders. But the intelligence which comprehends the meaning of a tone, is not less than that required to understand a word or sentence. Mr. Hamerton, the artist, widely known as a lover of animals, mentions a favorite dog which met an untimely death by drowning, and in his lament over his lost pet, says: “He was a dog of rare gifts, exceptionally intelligent, who would obey a look where another needed an order. He would sit studying his master’s face and had become from careful observation so acute a physiognomist that he read whatever thoughts of mine had any concern for him.”
The shrewd intelligence of our countrymen is nowhere more clearly seen than in the keen bargains the New Englander is famous for driving. But our domestic animals make bargains with us and sometimes resolutely keep us to them. On this point a pleasant writer relates an anecdote of a favorite mare who was so difficult to catch in the pasture as to often require six men to effect it; “but,” says he, “I carried corn to her for a long time, without trying to take her, leaving the corn on the ground. Next, I induced her to eat the corn while I held it, still leaving her free. Finally I persuaded her to follow me, and now she will come trotting half a mile at my whistle, leaping ditches, fording brooks, in the darkness and rain, or in impenetrable fog. She follows me like a dog to the stable and I administer the corn there. But it is a bargain; she knowingly sells her liberty for the corn. The experiment of reducing the reward to test her behavior having been tried, she ceased to obey the whistle and resumed her former habits; but the full and due quantity having been restored, she yielded her liberty again without resistance, and since then she is not to be cheated.”
A horse which is regularly used for attending church, will, from its own observation, learn to recognize the Sabbath and understand the meaning of the church bells. Two interesting illustrations of this fact I give on the authority of a recent number of the Hartford Post:
A pair of horses that had been used during the week in team-work to Springfield, on Sunday were harnessed and driven to the door unhitched, and, the family being rather tardy that morning, as soon as the second bell began to ring the horses started off alone, and with their usual Sunday motion went up in front of the church, when, after waiting the usual time, they quietly went around under the horse-shed.
Here the horses plainly understood the distinction between that day and the six previous ones when they had been driven to Springfield, else they would have gone, after starting, to where they had been going through the week; they also evidently understood that at the ringing of the second bell it was time to start for church. The gentleman who communicated the foregoing adds an instance which occurred in his own family:
The father of the writer, owing to increasing infirmities, rode alone to meeting, half a mile, driving an old gray mare twenty years old, and had not failed of going every Sabbath for some years. On one occasion, owing to a fall, he could not go to meeting, and on Sunday morning, as the time for meeting approached, the horse, in a lot near the house, manifested great uneasiness, and when the second bell struck she leaped over the fence and trotted quietly to church, stopping at her usual hitching-place, under an old elm tree, until the close of the service, when the faithful animal returned safely to the house.
When we remember that such exhibitions of intelligence occur continually where the animals have received no training on the subjects to which they relate, it seems certain that they are the result of a mental process which strongly resembles thought, and we would expect, from patient culture, displays of intelligence greatly in advance of those ordinarily taking place. Such an expectation is justified by the results which have followed training when directed to this end. In a paper entitled “Canine Guests,” Philip Gilbert Hamerton gives an account of the trained dogs of M. du Rouil which, but for the unimpeachable veracity of the writer, would be almost incredible. M. du Rouil began to educate his first dog out of curiosity to see the effect of the sort of education which seemed to him best adapted for establishing a close understanding between the human and canine minds; the results astonished himself and were so gratifying that he subsequently educated two others on the same principles. Two of these dogs, “Blanche” and “Lyda,” with their master, were guests of Mr. Hamerton, and the intelligence they exhibited, and which he describes, is, by his own admission, “incredible,” yet may be so only because of our ignorance of the nature and extent of the mental powers belonging to the animal creation. Among the many feats performed by them were the spelling of words by lettered cards; the correction of words purposely misspelled; the working out of simple problems in arithmetic and the playing of cards and dominoes. Of the latter, Mr. Hamerton says: “Both the dogs played a game at dominoes. This was managed as follows: the dogs sat on chairs opposite each other, and took up the domino that was wanted; but the master placed it in its position and kept announcing the state of the game. Their distress when they could not go on without drawing from the bank was announced in piteous whines, and amused us all exceedingly. Lyda was the loser, and precipitately retreated to hide herself with an evident consciousness of defeat.”
An incident occurred in the course of the evening which showed some understanding of language. A little girl wanted Blanche to come to her, but the dog kept away, on which M. du Rouil said, “Blanche, go salute the little girl!” She immediately went up to the child and made a formal obeisance.