Animals: Family Quarrel

One sunny morning last week, Hilda, an 8-year-old, 3,000-lb. Indian elephant in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Zoo, woke up feeling kittenish. Sniffing the fragrant scent wafted over from the Botanical Gardens, she strolled up & down the edge of the concrete moat which separates animals from sightseers, squealed coquettishly to her 4,500-lb. mate, Bill, to come out and join her. But Bill had got out of bed with the wrong foot; when he came out. pointedly ignored her. Vexed, Hilda gave a loud, long trumpet. Suddenly Bill lowered his head, charged, hit Hilda broadside, knocked her tail-over-tea-kettle into the 25-ft.-deep moat, where she lay on crumpled legs, apparently paralyzed.

To pull Hilda up again it took eight men from the Department of Parks, a derrick truck, block & tackle. Attendants said she had no bones broken but she refused to move her hind legs. A sling was rigged to hold up her body and give them a rest.