The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the traditionary stories of elephant sagacity, that Pidcock, to whom the Exeter Change Menagerie for- merly belonged, had, for some years, a custom of treating himself and his elephant in the evening with a glass of spirits, for which the animal regularly looked. Pidcock invariably gave the elephant the first glass out of the bottle, till one night he exclaimed, “ You have been served first long enough, and it’s my turn now.” The proud beast was offended—refused the glass when he was denied his precedence—and never more would join his master in his revelries. An affecting instance of the force of habitual obedience was presented by Chuni, the famous elephant who was shot at Exeter Change. In the greatest access cf his fury, when bullets were striking him from every side, he obeyed the voice of his keeper, who ordered him to kneel, in the belief that he might be more easily shot in that position *. In the same way an elephant who became furious at Geneva, in 1820, under circumstances similar to those which led to the death of Chuni, when running wildly about the town, attacking every one who came in his way, yielded the most prompt obedience to the female whose property he was, and suffered himself to be led by her to a place of safety, where he was killed. The female elephant at Mr. Cross’s Menagerie is called Lutchme. This was the name of an elephant belonging to Captain Williamson, the writer on Oriental sports. The practice of giving names to ele- phants is of great antiquity, and is almost universal in the east. Thus, the favourite elephant of Poms was called Nicon,—and that of Antiochus, Ajax;— Abulabaz was the name of that which Haroun Alraschid sent to Charlemagne, and Hanno of that * A very interesting account of the death of this elephant is giveu by Mr. Hone, in his “Every-Day Book,” vol.ii.p. 322.