244 



BOOK VIII. 



THE NATURE OF THE TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) — ELEPHAIifTS; THEIR CAPACITY. 



Let us now pass on to the other animals, and first of all to the 

 land animals. The elephant is the largest of them all, and in 

 intelligence approaches the nearest to man. It understands the 

 language of its country, it obeys commands, and it remembers 

 all the duties which it has been taught. It is sensible 

 alike of the pleasures of love and glory, and, to a degree 

 that is rare among men even, possesses notions of honesty, 

 prudence, and equity ; it has a religious respect also for 

 the stars, and a veneration for the sun and the moon.^ It 

 is said by some authors, that, at the first appearance of the 

 new moon, herds of these animals come down from the forests 

 of Mauritania to a river, the name of which is Amilo;^ 

 and that they there purify themselves in solemn form by 

 sprinkling their bodies with water ; after which, having thus 

 saluted the heavenly body, they return to the woods, carrying 

 before them^ the young ones which are fatigued. They are 

 supposed to have a notion, too, of the differences of religion ;* 



^ Cuvier remarks, that this account of its superior intelligence is ex- 

 aggerated, it being no greater than that of the dog, if, indeed, equal to it. 

 The opinion may perhaps have arisen from the dexterity with which the 

 animal uses its trunk ; but this is to be ascribed not to its own intelli- 

 gence, but to the mechanical construction of the part. The Indians, from 

 whom we may presume that Pliny derived his account, have always re- 

 garded the elephant with a kind of superstitious veneration. — B. 



- Some would read this " Amilo," and others "Annulo." Hardouin 

 considers it the same with the river Valo, which is mentioned by Ptolemy, 

 B. iv. c. 1, and said to have its rise in the mountains known as the Seven 

 Brothers, and mentioned in B. v. c. 1. 



3 " Prse se ferentes," probably alluding to the use which the animal 

 makes of its trunk in seizing and carr>'ing bodies. — B. 



* " ^UiencB religionis." The meaning of this is doubtful. It may mean 

 "diflferences in religion," or "religious feeling in others," or perhaps, to 

 judere from the context, *' the religious regard for their oath which others 

 feel." 



