Sea-Elephant

Like Mark Twain and John Singer Sargent, even a sea-elephant might think it funny to see his own obituary notices. But great-tusked, bulging-eyed, three-and-a-half ton Goliath, "the only sea-elephant in captivity," employe of Circusman John Ringling, never looks happy, and last fortnight he looked no happier when the press carried countrywide news of his death (TIME, Oct. 7). There was one sentence, moreover, which might have given gloomy thoughts to the happiest of sea-elephants: "Goliath will be mounted for the Field Museum [Chicago]." While the Field Museum congratulated itself, Goliath was basking ponderously on his specially constructed truck in Waycross, Ga.; engulfing his daily 1,200 lb. of fish; thunderously snorting at his keeper. The unfortunate who really had died was not a circus aristocrat but a mere elephant-seal of the Hagenbeck-Wallace (Ringling-owned) Circus.