f those
interesting processes of selection which have so far affected for the
better the characteristics of nearly all the other domesticated animals.

In every other regard than those mentioned above, the elephant appears
to be an excellent subject for improvement by choice in breeding. The
individuals vary much as regards their physical and mental qualities.
Probably no other wild mammal exhibits such differences in the mental
features as does this highly intellectual creature. The physical
individuality does not seem to be as striking as the mental, but even
here we note a range, at least as regards size, which is unusual in the
wild forms bred under similar conditions. The general elasticity of the
group is shown by the considerable differences which may be traced in
the herds which occupy different parts of the field over which the
species range. As yet these local peculiarities have not been carefully
studied; but from an examination of the tusks in the ivory warehouse at
the docks in London, I have found that those shipped from particular
ports in Africa and Asia differed both in form and texture, so that
the experts were able to tell from which district they came. The
evidence, in a word, appears to show that the creature tends to vary;
and it is a safe presumption that the forms would prove as responsive
to the breeder's art as those of our horses, cattle, sheep, or dogs.

As a whole, the elephant has been almost as little associated with the
life of our own race as the camel. Neither of these creatures has ever
played any considerable part in European affairs. From the
disappearance of the last of the mammoths in the closing stages of the
Glacial time until the invasions of Italy by Pyrrhus and by Hannibal,
elephants were practically unknown in Western Europe. They have never
been used in peaceful occupations on that continent, and have had only
a trifling place in its military arts. It was probably due to this
separation of our eminently experimental race from the realm of the
elephants that no efforts have been made systematically to breed them
in captivity, and thus to win varieties in which the form might become
better adapted to economic needs, and the remarkable mental powers of
the creature be brought to their utmost development. As yet the only
Europeans who have had much to do with elephants are the British, who
in their civil and military service in India have been thrown in
contact with these anima