CuAf. II.] 



HABITS WHEN WILD. 



2it7 



" Peaceful, 'beneath primeval trees, that cast 

 Their ample shade on Niger's yellow stream, 

 Or where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves, 

 Leans the huge Elephant."' 



It is not difficult to see whence this antiquated dehi- 

 sion took its origin ; nor is it, as Su' Thomas Browne 

 imagined, to be traced exclusively "to the grosse and 

 cyhndricall structure " of the animal's legs. The fact 

 is, that the elephant, returning in the early morning 

 from his nocturnal revels in the reservoirs and water- 

 courses, is accustomed to rub his muddy sides against 

 a tree, and sometimes aijainst a rock if more convenient. 

 In my rides through the northern forests, the natives 

 of Ceylon have often pointed out that elephants of 

 considerable size must have preceded me, from the 

 height at which their marks had been left on the trees, 

 against which they had been rubbing. Not unfrequently 

 the animals themselves, overcome with drowsiness fi'om 

 the night's gambolling, are found dosing and resting 

 against the trees they had so visited, and in the same 

 manner they have been discovered by sportsmen asleep, 

 and leaning against a rock. 



It is scarcely necessary to explain that the position is 

 accidental, and tliat it is taken by the elephant not from 

 any difficulty in lying at length on the ground, but rather 

 from the coincidence that the structure of his legs 

 affords such support in a standing position, that re- 

 chning scarcely adds to his enjoyment of repose ; and 

 elephants in a state of capti\ity have been known 

 for months together to sleep without lying down.^ So 



pei"petuated the error of Guillim, 

 who wi-ote his Display of Ile- 

 rahh-y in a.d. 1610; wherein he 

 explains that the elephant is "so 

 proud of his strength that he never 

 bows himself to any {neither indeed 

 can he), and when he is once down he 

 cannot rise up again. " — Sec. ni. ch. 

 xiii. p. 147. 



1 rnoMSON's Seasons, a.d. 1728. 



^ So little is the elephant inclined 

 to lie down in captivity, and even 



after hard lahoiu", that the keepers 

 are generally disposed to suspect ill- 

 ness when he betakes himself to this 

 posture. PiULE, in liis poem De 

 Animaliiim Proprietate, attributes 

 the propensity of tlie elepliant to 

 sleep on his legs, to the ditHcidty he 

 experiences in rising to his feet : 



'Of)6oTraSr]v ^t koI Kafiiv^it navvvx^oc^ 

 "Or' ovK dvaoTrjaai fiiv ivxip<^€ ^fXfi. 



But this is a misapprehension. 



