Besides parrots there are in the same house toucans, birds who have enormous bills and rather small bodies--in fact, they seem to have spent their time growing bills. The bill, or beak, is like the claw of a lobster, and is rich orange colour. The toucan's eye has bright blue round it, and round that again orange colour. The bird himself is black, but he has tips of scarlet on his costume and a white throat, so he is altogether very grand, and he is so solemn that you think he must imagine himself very superior.
Just beyond the parrot house is a long range of buildings like a large stable, and here are the elephants and other big animals. Perhaps the elephant is out earning his living by walking round the Gardens with a seat on his back, on which anyone can have a ride who likes. He is very gentle and tame, though his enormous height and great swinging trunk make him appear rather fearful.
If he is at home, and we pay him a visit, he coils up his trunk or lifts it over his head, and shows a huge three-cornered mouth, into which, he gently insinuates, he would like you to throw biscuits. There are both Indian and African elephants, and the African are generally the larger.
Elephants as a rule have very good characters, and get fond of their keepers. They are big and gentle; yet in some cases they have suddenly turned savage without any apparent reason. In the wild state they live in dense forests, and unless they were very strong and their hides were very thick they could never get through the trees and shrubs at all; but they force them asunder with their great strength, and snap the long twining plants that hang from tree to tree. Any other animal would be wounded and torn with the spikes and thorns, but the elephant's hide is as strong as a board. He does not mind prickles, and the only sensitive part of him is just behind the ear, so when he is tamed a man sits on his neck, and with a little sharp-pointed spike pricks him behind the ear on the side he wants him to go. It does not hurt, but the elephant feels it and soon understands, and follows the directions as a horse follows the pull of the reins in driving. Elephants live entirely on green food and vegetables, and never want to eat flesh. In their forests they can find plenty of food, and they tear down great branches of rich trees with their long trunks, and then strip the leaves off neatly and put them into their mouths. When the elephant is thirsty he goes to a deep watercourse and drinks, and then, sucking up water in his trunk, he squirts it over his back and sides in a cooling shower-bath.