Sarath Kumar Ghosh

“ Yes, an elephant never forgets an injury, but he never forgets a kindness either. Perhaps Mukna remembered at that moment all the petting he had received when he was a good elephant, all the sugar-canes and bananas and pancakes—and all the rewards for being gentle and docile and obedient. And now he realized that, instead of receiving these good things, he was receiving a most terrible punishment for being wicked, and for being obstinate in wickedness. ”

“ No men could stop him, even if they had guns ready all the time; for it might take several minutes to kill an elephant even with a special kind of gun. And meanwhile the mad elephant could trample upon scores of people in a crowded circus.
And it is just the same in a procession, when elephants are used to carry grand people—kings and queens, princes and princesses, lords and ladies. An elephant in a sudden fit of rage could kill many of them.
Then why do people use elephants in a circus or in a procession? Why do they trust themselves with such large and strong animals? ”

“ When you grow up, you may sometimes be tempted to doubt that an all-merciful Providence watches over us. Then remember these wonders of the jungle that I have described to you. And remember especially the Water Hole, where all animals are like brothers, where even the tiger and the lamb drink and lie down together in peace. ”

“ So if the herd has chosen merely the biggest and strongest elephant to be their president and he makes such mistakes as that, they soon depose him; that is, they no longer follow him. They look around for some other leader who can discover a better way, and they follow him instead. And if afterward they find that he is wise and clever, and does not make mistakes, they follow him as their leader every day after that, even if he is not quite so big and strong as the other elephant was.
He then becomes the new president, if he is at least strong enough to make a good gap through the jungle. ”

“ If a lion is mortally wounded through the heart or through the head, he usually drops to the ground at once. But if a tiger were mortally wounded in the same manner, he would at least leap toward the hunter, and try to kill his slayer, before he himself agreed to drop down and die.
The lion has sometimes been called the King of the Jungle—I suppose because in those countries where he lives there are no tigers. So the lion is the "monarch of all he surveys" in his own jungle. Of course, the lion looks grander and more imposing because he has a mane, and the tiger has none. ”

“ When the jaguar has pounced on a fish, a silent snout may come up to him from behind—and grab him! Yes, an alligator! And the alligator needs only to hold the jaguar in his jaws, and drag him down, and keep him under water till the jaguar is drowned. Then the alligator can have jaguar flesh for his dinner.
Here again we have an example of competition in the jungle. The jaguar must cultivate not only quickness in catching fish, but also his own sense of hearing, so as to escape from the alligator in time. ”

“ Some people fear a large leopard even more than they do a tiger, because a large leopard attacks a man even more often than a tiger does. Other wild animals as a rule avoid man, as I have told you before. But a tiger very often attacks man, and a large leopard does so almost every time he can. He is by nature even more ferocious than a tiger.
The leopard has this very bad quality: he is perhaps the only animal that kills for the mere "fun" of killing—just like some men who call themselves "sportsmen." If a large leopard gets among a herd of cattle, he kills several of them, one after another. ”

“ A tiger is wiser. He does not destroy his own food supply needlessly.
People are also wrong when they say that a tiger is "cruel," and that he tortures his prey before killing it outright. That is not true of the tiger. In fact, hardly any animal is needlessly cruel, as some men and naughty boys are—for instance, naughty boys who torture frogs and lizards and then kill them.
It is true that a tigress does worry her prey before killing it. But why does she do so? Simply to teach her cubs how to catch and kill the prey, so as to provide food for themselves when they grow up. ”

“ I have already told you that the president of an elephant herd must keep order within his own herd; that is, he must not allow a naughty elephant to commit a crime, such as to attack any other member of the herd. And if a naughty elephant does commit a crime, it is the duty of the president to punish him. ”

“ As they are not yet big enough to catch the prey, they are first taught how to kill the prey, after their father or mother has caught it alive for them. And that is another wonder of the jungle, and another good quality of the tiger. If the tiger catches a deer, even the largest kind of deer, he could kill it at one blow, so as to eat it at once. But if the tiger is the father of a young family, he thinks of his family all the time; he remembers that he must not only provide his young children with food, but he must also teach them their lessons. ”

“ But in the case of the American wolf, man wanted to kill him off altogether as a race of animals; and yet he has not been able to do so. At first the hunter may have killed the wolf only for the sake of its fur; but in the last few years the American farmer and the ranchman have tried to wipe out the wolf altogether as a pest—because the wolf kills their sheep and cattle. And yet, the wolf flourishes in the West. He has beaten the farmer and the ranchman.
The wonderful part of it is that the American wolf has beaten man by his own efforts. ”

“ Here I ought to tell you that a dog's claws are quite different from the claws of a feline, even from those of an ordinary cat. The cat's claws are of course retractile, as I have just described to you. But a dog's claws are rigid; that is, they are stiff and thrust out all the time. Why? Because the dog does not use its claws. It seizes its food with its mouth, not with its claws. It even defends itself with its mouth, that is, with its teeth.
But a feline uses its claws to seize its food, and even to defend itself. You may have noticed that even an ordinary cat defends itself with its claws. ”

“ And today Mukna wears a cloth-of-gold, with gold rings on his tusks, and he walks in a royal procession. Sometimes he carries grand people on his back, and sometimes children. And no elephant is more gentle and thoughtful with little children than he is. ”

“ But as the lion usually lives amid scantier vegetation, he does not need to feel his surroundings quite so constantly; and so his tail has lost the power of curling itself upward.
Of course, the lion still uses his tail to express his love or hate, as many animals do. He can express his affection by wagging his tail, just like a dog, though he seldom has any reason to show his affection for men; a tame lion, however, has actually been known to do that. But he may very often have reason to express his anger, in fact, whenever a hunter tries to kill him. ”

“ But there is never any real need to quarrel in an elephant herd; for if one of the elephants has done wrong or broken the rules of the herd, he will be punished by the president of the herd—just as in school a naughty boy would be punished by the teacher or by the head of the school.
It is not necessary for any other elephant in the herd to quarrel or fight with the naughty elephant, even if he has been injured by him; the president of the herd will punish the naughty elephant soon enough. So if two elephants do fight, both of them are punished ”

“ If he manages to commit the crime before they can prevent him, they surround him immediately and keep him there like a prisoner, till the president of the herd comes to punish him.
My dear children, that is a great lesson for us. A good citizen always helps to keep the law; if he sees anyone breaking the law, he tries to prevent him from doing so. Some men do nothing, if they see a person breaking the law; they say, "It is no business of ours." Elephants are much better citizens of the jungle in that respect; they always try to prevent a bad elephant from breaking the law. ”

“ The leopard seizes his prey by the throat when it is a swift-footed animal, like the deer. But when it is a slow-footed animal, like cattle, the leopard uses another method—at least on some occasions. He rushes to the prey from the side or the back, and kills it by a blow of his paw on the neck from above—as a tiger does. If one blow only stuns the prey, and it falls, the leopard just starts eating the throat, which of course kills the prey. ”

“ These animals are the elephant, the buffalo, the deer, the antelope, and others. The bear is the only animal I have so far described to you (in Book I) that eats both vegetables—that is, the roots of trees—and the flesh of other animals as well.
But now I shall describe to you quite a different class of animals, namely, animals that eat only meat. Among these animals the most important group is the Cat Tribe, or the felines, as they are sometimes called. They possess many of the qualities of the ordinary cat.
The principal felines are the tiger, the lion, the leopard, the puma, and the jaguar. ”

“ In that respect also the tiger is far finer than the lion. A tiger has only one wife; and he takes care of her and the cubs. But when a lion does stay with his family, the family usually consists of two or three lionesses, who are his wives, and their cubs.
In that case they hunt the prey in a pack; that is, the lion and the lionesses all hunt the prey together; and they are even helped by the older cubs. They need to hunt in a pack when the prey happens to be large, such as a buffalo or a giraffe. A lion by himself could seldom kill a buffalo or a giraffe. ”

“ I shall then tell you how all sorts of naughty elephants are punished; for, just like people in a country, I am sorry to say that there are in the jungle a few elephants that do not obey the law.
An elephant can be selfish not only in eating, but also in drinking. ”

“ It needs an elephant—a trained elephant—to face a tiger, as I have already described to you. And usually it needs several elephants to hunt a tiger.
The tiger has also many more of the catlike qualities than the lion has. The tiger is more active than the lion, can leap farther, and can make up his mind more quickly. Above all, like a cat, the tiger has "nine lives." Many a time a hunter has killed a lion with a single shot. ”

“ The third duty of the elephant leader is to keep order in the herd. Most elephants are by nature gentle, docile, and obedient. That is why men can tame them and make them work; otherwise, if elephants were by nature fierce and disobedient, men could not train them so perfectly as to perform at a circus, or carry people in a procession. So even in the jungle, where the elephants are wild, they usually obey the leader and keep the laws of the herd. ”

“ Because when the animal needs food, it must thrust out the claws to seize it. But in just running about in the jungle, it does not need to use its claws; so it draws them in. In fact, if it did not draw in its claws then, the claws would soon be worn out by rubbing against the ground. And even if the claws were growing all the time, they would be also wearing off all the time. So to keep the claws sharp for use only when the animal wants to seize something, it keeps the claws drawn in at other times. ”

“ The president of the herd must lead the elephants in such a manner as to avoid any danger that may come to the herd from outside. In the jungle there are other wild animals; most of them are, of course, too small to be able to hurt so large an animal as an elephant; but a tiger is so strong and so fierce that he could kill a small, half-grown elephant. ”

“ A feline's fangs, however, are too big to tear off small pieces of meat from a bone. So it uses its tongue to scrape off the small pieces of meat. That is the reason why a feline's tongue is very rough. So again you see, as I told you in Book I, that every animal has the gift it needs. If the feline did not have a rough tongue, it could not eat the small pieces of meat on a bone; and so a portion of its food would be wasted. No inhabitant of the jungle wastes food. It is only we who waste food. ”

“ Then he would be fated to roam the jungle by himself all his life—which is a most awful punishment. An outlaw among men has a similar fate, as he is shunned by all honest people.
A rogue elephant, being the outlaw of the jungle, does not live long. Just as an outlaw among men gets shot by the sheriff's men sooner or later, so also a rogue elephant gets shot by hunters. For, although the hunters must not shoot an ordinary wild elephant [64] that is a member of a herd, they may shoot at sight a rogue elephant that is roaming in solitude. ”

“ A tiger has often been known to smash the skull of a buffalo with a single blow of its paw.
Third advantage: the padded paws enable a feline to leap farther. After a feline has crept up as near to its prey as it can, it has still to leap upon its prey to seize it. Then the muscles under the paws act like springs, and enable the feline to give a big leap. Even in running, the muscles act somewhat like springs. You must have noticed that, in running, a dog gallops, but a cat bounds. ”

“ Then if the father and mother were as kind to their children as the tiger and tigress are, they would give to their children the breast and all the nicest titbits of the turkey—and after that the father and mother would eat what remained of the turkey.
That shows that a tiger is an affectionate father, whatever faults he may have. Among animals, the mothers, of course, are nearly always affectionate to their children; but very often the fathers are not. In fact, among some kinds of animals in the jungle, the fathers do not care much for their children; they desert them. ”