40 The Wild Elephant. 



Kalany Ganga ; // remained on its feet, but so motionless, 

 that after discharging a few more balls, he was induced 

 to go close to it, and found it dead. 



The real peculiarity in the elephant in lying down is, 

 that he extends his hind legs backwards as a man does 

 when he kneels, instead of bringing them under him 

 like the horse or any other quadruped. Tlie wise pur- 

 pose of this arrangement must be obvious to any one 

 who observes the struggle with which the horse gets up 

 from the ground, and the violent efforts which he makes 

 to raise himself erect. Such an exertion in the case of 

 the elephant, and the force requisite to apply a similar 

 movement to raise his weight (equal to four or five tons) 

 would be attended with a dangerous strain upon the 

 muscles, and hence the simple arrangement, which by 

 enabling him to draw the hind feet gradually under him, 

 assists him to rise without a perceptible effort. 



From the same causes I am disposed to think that the 

 elephant is too weighty and unwieldy to leap, at least to 

 any considerable height or distance ; and yet I have 

 seen in the Colombo Observer for March, 1866, an in- 

 teresting account of a corral, written by an able and 

 accurate describer, in which it is stated that an enfuriated 

 tusker, the property of the Government, made a rush to 

 escape from the enclosure, " and fairly leaped the 

 barrier, of some fifteen feet high, only carrying away the 

 top cross beam with a great crash." 



The same construction renders his gait not a " gallop," 

 as it has been somewhat loosely described,* which would 



' Menageries, etc. "The Elephant," Sir Charles Bell, in his essay on 



ch. i. The Hand and its Mcchanisvi, which 



