AUTOPSY OF AN ELEPHANT. 227 



tend backward till one hip is near the ground, and 

 then drops unguardedly upon the protuberant abdo- 

 men and side. The huge animal in this terminal 

 movement of lying down falls so helplessly that it 

 would seem a hopeless task to rise again. But the 

 somewhat flexible or mobile joints help the prostrate 

 creature to raise the hips with ease, and to poise the 

 ponderous trunk upon the legs. 



The enormous weight of a full grown elephant, 

 and the awkward use of its limbs, would seem to warn 

 the animal not to venture in miry places, but facts are 

 against the supposition. The elephantidse delight to 

 wallow in the mud and mire of swampy places, and 

 to sport in ponds and streams. I never knew a tame 

 elephant to become inextricably stranded in a quag- 

 mire of its own chosing as a wallowing place. 



In reviewing the peculiarities of the elephant I 

 forgot to mention in the proper place that in the skin 

 on the side of the head, between the eye and the ear, 

 there exists a small opening which is the commence- 

 ment of a duct an inch or two in length, running 

 toward the lachrymal organs (if it do not actually 

 reach a gland in the orbital cavity), that leads to a 

 secretory apparatus. A gummy substance is produced 

 in the canal which sometimes clogs the external 

 opening. This lachrymal appendage is prominent in 

 the cervidse ; and when the duct becomes obstructed 

 in the deer the animal employs the point of one of 

 its hind hoofs to clear away an obstacle to free dis- 

 charge. The elephant, to accomplish a similar pur- 

 pose, selects a straw or dry twig with its proboscidian 

 digit and skillfully probes the canal. The keeper of 

 Mr. Robinson's herd of elephants took me among the 

 creatures in order to show one of the animals that 



