The spider’s art and graceful movements receive due praise, as do the cleanly habits of bees, which are said to sting people who use unguents because they dislike bad smells. “Bright and shiny bees” Aristotle asserts to be idle, “like women.”
Of all animals his favourites are the lion and the elephant. The lion is gentle when he is not hungry and he is not jealous or suspicious. He is fond of playing with animals that are brought up with him, and he gets to have a real affection for them. If a blow aimed at a lion fails, he only shakes and frightens his attacker, and then leaves him without hurting him. He never shows fear or turns his back on a foe. But old lions that are unable to hunt sometimes enter villages and attack mankind. This is the first observation of the “man-eating” lion or tiger, and the reason given for his perverse conduct is still believed to be the right one.
Aristotle assigned the palm of wisdom to the elephant, a creature abounding in intellect, tame, gentle, teachable, and one which can even learn how to “worship the king”—which is what many of us saw the elephants do at the Delhi Durbar.
In a later age, Apollonius of Tyana confirmed from personal observation all Aristotle’s praise; he watched with admiration the crossing of the Indus by a herd of thirty elephants which were being pursued by huntsmen; the light and small ones went first, then the mothers, who held up their cubs with tusk and trunk, and lastly the old and large elephants. Pliny gave a similar account of the way in which elephants cross rivers, and it is, I believe, still noticed as a fact that the old ones send the young ones before them. The officer whose duty it was to superintend the embarcation of Indian elephants for Abyssinia during the campaign of Sir Robert Napier told me how a very fine old elephant, who perfectly understood the business in hand, drove all the others on board, but after performing this useful service, when it came to be his turn, he refused resolutely to move an inch, and had to be left behind. The sympathy with animals for which Apollonius was remarkable made him feel for these great beasts brought into subjection; he declares that at night they mourn over their lost liberty with peculiar piteous sounds unlike those which they make usually; if a man approaches, however, they cease their wailing out of respect for him. He speaks of their attachment to their keeper, how they eat bread from his hand like a dog and caress him with their trunks. He saw an elephant at Taxila which was said to have fought against Alexander the Great three hundred and fifty years before. Alexander named it Ajax, and it bore golden bracelets on its trunk with the words: “Ajax. To the Sun from Alexander son of Jove.” The people decked it with garlands and anointed it with precious salves. Several classical writers bore witness to the pleasure which elephants took in music; they could be made to dance to the pipe. It was also said that they could write. Their crowning merit—that of helping away wounded comrades, which is vouched for by no less an authority than Mr. F. C. Selous—does not seem to have been observed in ancient times.