Kotes. ii. i6. i8i 



in his time : " Divers breathe by letting down a metallic vessel. For this does not get 

 filled with water, but retains the air within it" {Probl. xxxii.). 



The elephant does in fact use its trunk in the way described when crossing a deep 

 river (cf. Tennenfs Ceylon^ ii. 310). 



4. This story comes from Herodotus (iv. 183). It is there stated that in a certain 

 part of Africa, inhabited by the Garamantes, there are oxen that walk backwards while 

 grazing, "for their horns are so bent as to render it impossible for them to move 

 forwards while grazing, as the horns would stick into the ground in front of them. 

 These oxen differ in no other respects than this from ordinary oxen, excepting that their 

 hides are thicker and harder." This has been copied by Pliny (A^. Hist. viii. 45) and 

 others. Heeren finds a foundation for the story in the fact that the horns of cattle 

 among the nomad tribes of Africa are not uncommonly so bent by the herdsmen that one 

 projects forwards, the other backwards ; and cattle of this kind are, he says, to be found 

 represented on Nubian monuments. 



There is an Egyptian wall-painting in the British Museum (No. 169) which I suppose 

 to be such a , representation as Heeren alludes to. One horn is there made to project 

 straight forwards and the other backwards. I attribute the appearance to the artist's 

 inability to deal properly with perspective. Still such a painting may have been the 

 source of the strange account. 



5. It is of course true that one single part is often used for several separate 

 purposes, but it is no less true that such an accumulation of functions is a mark of 

 inferiority of organisation, as indeed is fully recognised elsewhere by Aristotle. See 

 for instance iv. 6, Note 15, where he says that nature when it is possible provides separate 

 organs for separate offices, instead of acting like a coppersmith, who for cheapness 

 makes "a spit and lamp-holder " all in one. 



6. The foot of the elephant is furnished with five flat hoofs, which correspond to the 

 five toes ; these latter being distinct enough in the skeleton, but, in the living animal, 

 concealed "within the thick skin, though indicated externally by the divisions of the hoof. 

 A. thus describes it elsewhere: "All animals that have toes have nails, excepting 

 the elephant. For in this animal the toes are not separated nor clearly distinct, 

 and there are no nails whatsoever " {H. A. iii. 9, 6). I do not think that A. ever 

 saw an elephant. Had he himself examined the animal, he would hardly have said it 

 had no nails whatsoever, nails of course including hoofs. (Cf. next note, and Introd., 

 pp. xiii-xiv.) 



7. It was the general belief of the ancients that the elephant had no joints in its legs 

 and was therefore unable to lie down, but slept leaning against a tree (iv. 10, Note 38). 

 This notion. Sir T. Browne complains (Fu/gar Errors, iii. l), was still in his time "alive 

 and epidemicall in England and Italy, although we have had the advantage in England 

 not many years past of an elephant shown in many parts thereof, not only in the 

 posture of standing but kneeling and lying down, whereby although the opinion at 

 present be well suppressed, yet from some strings of tradition and fruitful recurrence 

 of error, it may revive in the next generation again, this being not the first that hath 

 been seen in England." Sir T. Browne's anticipation was realised, and almost up to 

 the present day traces of the old eyror are to be- found in our literature. Aristotle 

 however escaped the mistake ; though the inaccuracy of his own account renders it 

 probable that he had never himself seen an elephant, but described it at second-hand. 

 "The elephant," he say's, "is not made as some would have it, but is able to bend 

 its legs so as to rest on the ground. Its great weight however renders it impossible 

 for it to bend tli« legs on both sides at once. It sinks down therefore on one side 



