Elephant's Mode of Progression. 459 



The fish so taken are perfect!}' wholesome, as I can attest 

 from having myself partaken of them at a marooning party 

 made for the occasion. 



The inebriating effect of the mixture arises from the com- 

 bination of the ingredients, and not from the simple operation 

 of any one substance. The active constituent of the bark of 

 the roots of the Piscidia is a resin, which requires the solvent 

 powers of the low wines, as the lees of the still-house are 

 generally called, to render it miscible with the quicklime ; by 

 which union I imagine that a kind of resinous soap is formed, 

 miscible with the waters of the sea. Such, at least, appears 

 to me to be the rationale of the operation ; as, otherwise, any 

 of the ingredients singly ought to be capable of producing a 

 similar effect. — W. Hamilton, M.D. Oxford Place, Plymouth, 

 Bee. 4. 1835. 



wsfi sdi lo ono gnis jxK ^ohj;rf:t : • ..^ai 



-oi ion briii filial 



Art. III. A Notice of the Elephant's Mode of Progression* 

 lo dfeoqi B j, G< Tat £ M) j un>> Esq . * 



Jjsmnd ^tea-rabo <ra9dl 



In calling the attention of your readers to the elephant's mode 

 of progression, I am led to do so by observing the indifference 

 to the circumstance displayed in most delineations of the 

 animal. The mode is remarked by Bishop Heber: he says, 

 "At Barrakpoor, for the first time, I mounted an elephant, the 

 motion of which I thought far from disagreeable, though very 

 different from that of the horse ; as the animal moves both feet 

 on the same side at once, the sensation is like that of being 

 carried on a man's shoulders." Capt. Williamson, likewise, 

 alludes to it, and compares it to the artificial pace of ambling 

 taught to some horses. But, in most works on natural history 

 it is not only unnoticed, but the figures of the animal are in- 

 correctly drawn, from the fact of the elephant's moving both 

 feet on the same side at the same time not having been at- 

 tended to : thus, in the recent volume of the Naturalist's 

 Library, plate 3., the animal is represented as trotting in the 

 manner of the horse : this is an error of the draughtsman, 

 which must have escaped the observation of Sir W. Jardine, 

 for we cannot believe so eminent a naturalist ignorant on this 

 point. Mr. Daniels, also, in the Oriental Annual, in which 

 he has given an engraving of the caparisoned elephant, has 

 committed the same mistake. That the peculiar movement 

 of the elephant might escape a superficial observer, I can 

 readily conceive ; for its rapid, though shuffling gait, in some 

 measure obscures it : indeed, so little is it ordinarily noticed, 

 that a gentleman, who had long resided in India, and was 



