Dr. Hari'ison. 6i 



connecting the back of the former with the fore part of 

 the latter, along which the fibres descend and can be 

 distinctly traced to the cardiac orifice of the stomach. 

 Imperfectly acquainted with the habits and functions of 

 the elephant in a state of nature, Dr. Harrison found 

 it difficult to pronounce as to the use of this very pecu- 

 liar structure ; but looking to the intimate connection 

 between the mechanism concerned in the functions of 

 respiration and deglutition, and seeing that the proboscis 

 served in a double capacity as an instrument of voice 

 and an organ for the prehension of food, he ventured 

 (apparently without adverting to the abnormal form of 

 the stomach) to express the opinion that this muscle, 

 viewing its attachment to the trachea, might either have 

 some influence in raising the diaphragm, and thereby 

 assisting in expiration, '■^or that it might raise the cardiac 

 orifice of the stomachy and so aid this organ to regiirgitate a 

 Portion of its contents into the (Esophagus T ^ 



Dr. Harrison, on the reflection that "we have no 

 satisfactoiy evidence that the animal ever ruminates," 

 thought it useless to speculate on the latter supposition 

 as to the action of the newly discovered muscle, and 

 rather inclined to the surmise that it was designed to 

 assist the elephant in producing the remarkable sound 

 through his proboscis known as " trumpeting ; " but there 

 is litde room to doubt that of the two the rejected hy- 

 pothesis was the more correct one. I have elsewhere 

 described the occurrence to which I was myself a witness, 

 of elephants inserting their proboscis in their mouths, 



' Proceed. Roy. Irish. Acad. vol. iv. p. 133. 



