How to get the first element of an array?

How do you get the first element from an array like this:

var ary = ['first', 'second', 'third', 'fourth', 'fifth'];

I tried this:

alert($(ary).first());

But it would return [object Object]. So I need to get the first element from the array which should be the element 'first'.

like this

alert(ary[0])