CUAP. II.] 



HABITS WHEN WILD. 



293 



them." 1 Tliis fallacy, as Sir Thomas Bkowne says, is 

 " not the daughter of latter times, but an old and grey- 

 headed errour, even in the days of Aristotle," who deals 

 with the story as he received it from Ctesias, by whom 

 it appears to have been embodied in liis lost work 

 on India. But although Aristotle generally receives 

 the credit of ha\dng exposed and demohshed the fallacy 

 of Ctesias, it wiH be seen by a reference to his treatise 

 On the Progressive Motions of Animals^ that in reahty 

 he approached the question with some hesitation, and 

 has not only left it doubtfid m one passage whether 

 the elephant has joints in his knee, although he demon- 

 strates that it has joints in the shoulders ^ ; but in 

 another he has distinctly affirmed that on account of his 

 weight the elephant cannot bend his fore legs together, 

 but only one at a time, and rechnes to sleep on that par- 

 ticular side.^ 



' '' Sirnt item quse appellantur 

 Alces. Ilaruni est consimilis capreis 

 figau-a, et varietas pellinm ; sed inag- 

 nitudiiie paiilo antecedunt, mutilfe- 

 que simt coniibus, et crura sine nodis 

 articulisque hahent ; iieque quietis 

 causa procimibimt ; neque, si quo af- 

 flictse casu couciderunt, erif^-ere sese 

 aut sublevare possimt. His sunt 

 arbores pro cubilibus ; ad eas sese 

 applicant, atque ita, paulum m,odo 

 reclinatpe, quietem capiimt, quaruui 

 ex vestifpis cimi est animadversmu a 

 venatoribus, quo se rociperc consue- 

 verint, omnes eo loco, aut a radicibus 

 subruimt aut accidimt arbores tan- 

 tum, ut sumiiui species earuni stan- 

 tiuui relinquatur. Hue cum se con- 

 suetudine reclinaverint, infirmas ar- 

 bores pondere atiligunt, atque mm 

 ipsfe concidunt." — Cjesar, l)e Bdlo 

 Gull. lib. vi. cb. xxvii. 



The same fiction was extended by 

 the early Arabian travellers to the 

 rhinoceros, and in the MS. of the 

 voyages of the "Two Mahomedans," 

 it is stated that the rhinoceros of Su- 

 matra " n'a point d'articidation au 

 genou ni a la main." — Relations des 

 Voyages, <^c. Paris, 1845, vol. i. p. 29. 



^ "T\Tien an animal moves pro- 

 gressively an hypothenuse is pro- 

 duced, which is equal in power to 

 the magnitude that is quiescent, and 

 to that which is intermediate. But 

 since the members are equal, it is 

 necessaiy that the member which is 

 quiescent should be inflected either 

 in the knee or in the incurvation, if 

 the animal that toalks is without knees. 

 It is possible, however, for the leg to 

 be moved, when not inflected, in the 

 same maimer as infants creep ; and 

 there is an ancient report of this kind 

 about elephants, which is not true, 

 for such animals as tlu\ee, are moved 

 in conseqiiente of an in/leefion taking 

 place either in their shoulders or /u)^s." 

 — ^Vkistotle, De Ingrcssu Anim., 

 ch. ix. Taylor's Transl. 



3 Aristotle, De Animal., lib. ii. 

 ch. i. It is cmious that Taylor, in 

 his translation of this passage, was so 

 strongly imbued with the " grey- 

 headed eiTOur," that in order to eluci- 

 date the somewhat obscure meaning' 

 of Aristotle, ho has actually inter- 

 polated the text with the exploded 

 fallacy of Ctesias, and after the word 

 reclining to sleep, has inserted the 



u 3 



