I suppose one of the most popular tales of animal sagacity is the story of how the elephant, in his revenge on the tailor for thrusting a needle into his trunk, scooped up large quantities of dirty water and squirted it all over that egregious tradesman.
My credulity, however, has been strained to the utmost limit by the following elephant story (taken from a recent book of adventure), in which gratitude, and not revenge, was the motive.
An African hunter, observing a young elephant that had fallen into a pit, rescued the animal with much difficulty. Many years afterwards the same hunter as an old man, down on his luck, visited a circus in New York. There was a parade of elephants, and among them was the animal he had rescued. The hunter had almost forgotten the incident, but the elephant had not; for it immediately rushed forward to where its former benefactor was sitting in the front of the shilling seats, lifted him in its trunk, carried him round the ring and deposited him on the more comfortable plush of the five shilling stalls.
The Irish Times, March 22nd, 1930.