neasiness at the presence of
a dog, but this is referable to the same cause as its impatience of a
horse, namely, that neither is habitually seen by it in the forest; but
it would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility
against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest
injury.[1] The truth I apprehend to be that, when they meet, the
impudence and impertinences of the dog are offensive to the gravity of
the elephant, and incompatible with his love of solitude and ease. Or
may it be assumed as an evidence of the sagacity of the elephant, that
the only two animals to which it manifests an antipathy, are the two
which it has seen only in the company of its enemy, man? One instance
has certainly been attested to me by an eye-witness, in which the trunk
of an elephant was seized in the teeth of a Scotch terrier, and such was
the alarm of the huge creature that it came at once to its knees. The
dog repeated the attack, and on every renewal of it the elephant
retreated in terror, holding its trunk above its head, and kicking at
the terrier with its fore feet. It would have turned to flight, but for
the interference of its keeper.

[Footnote 1: To account for the impatience manifested by the elephant at
the presence of a dog, it has been suggested that he is alarmed lest the
latter should attack _his feet_, a portion of his body of which the
elephant is peculiarly careful. A tame elephant has been observed to
regard with indifference a spear directed towards his head, but to
shrink timidly from the same weapon when pointed at his foot.]

Major Skinner, formerly commissioner of roads in Ceylon, whose official
duties in constructing highways involved the necessity of his being in
the jungle for months together, always found that, by night or by day,
the barking of a dog which accompanied him, was sufficient to put a herd
to flight. On the whole, therefore, I am of opinion that the elephant
lives on terms of amity with every quadruped in the forest, that it
neither regards them as its foes, nor provokes their hostility by its
acts; and that, with the exception of man, _its greatest enemy is a
fly_!

The current statements as to the supposed animosity of the elephant to
minor animals originated with AElian and Pliny, who had probably an
opportunity of seeing, what may at any time be observed, that when a
captive elephant is picketed beside a post, the domestic animals, goats,
sheep, and cattle,