390 THE INDIAN ELEPHANT. 



ingly deceptive, even to those who are most accustomed to the 

 animal. Mr. Corse, having measured a celebrated elephant of 

 the Nabob of Dacca, which was generally stated to be fourteen 

 feet high, found it did not exceed ten feet. The elephants of 

 Hindostan are, however, the smallest ; those of Pegu and Ava 

 are much larger ; and the skeleton of the elephant at the 

 Petersburgh Museum, and sent to the Czar Peter by the King 

 of Persia, is reported to be sixteen feet and a half in height. 

 It is probable, however, that few elephants of more than nine 

 feet in height have ever been brought to Europe ; nor is it 

 probable that the elephants of Hindostan have degenerated in 

 size, for the Emperor Baber says, in his celebrated Memoirs, 

 written in the fifteenth century, "I have never in these 

 countries [Delhi, &c.,], seen one above four or five gez [eight 

 or ten feet] in height," (p. 31 6). It seems agreed that. a large 

 elephant weighs from 6000 to 7000 pounds ; and of the whole 

 weight the carcase forms about four-fifths. In its wild state 

 the elephant's skin is smooth, and clothed with hair, which is 

 most abundant when the animal is young, and which increases 

 so much in the colder mountainous chains, that they are some- 

 times found, according to Bishop Heber, " as hairy as poodles 3" 

 and Mr. G. Fairholm, after a rigorous investigation of the 

 subject, has obtained satisfactory confirmation of this state- 

 ment. In a state of slavery and confinement, the hair is almost 

 entirely wanting ; and instead of it we generally see what 

 Chapman, an old dramatic author, not unaptly calls "its leprous 

 scaly hide," (May Day, 1611, Act I. Scene 4). An uncongenial 

 temperature, and the altered mode of the animal's life, are apt 

 to produce a disease of the skin, which then becomes hard and 

 knotty, or even scabby, as Mr. P. Blair noticed to be the case 

 in an elephant he dissected at Dundee. The natural colour 

 of the elephant is black or dusky. Cream-coloured, and albino 

 or white varieties are sometimes captured - } but as they are rare 

 they are highly prized, so much so indeed, that a perpetual war 

 existed between the Kings of Siam, Pegu, and Aracan, in the 

 sixteenth century, for the possession of a white elephant, and 



