THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



quate representatives of the race. It is in their 

 native regions, of course, that we look for the 

 most magnificent specimens. Some exaggeration, 

 however, has prevailed respecting the dimensions 

 attainable by the elephant. "Seventeen to twenty 

 feet" have been given as its occasional height in 

 the Madras presidency. The Emperor Baber, in 

 his Memoirs, alludes to the report that in the 

 islands the elephants attain ten gez, or about 

 twenty feet; but he adds, "I have never seen one 

 above four or five gez," (eight or ten feet). The 

 East India Company's standard was seven feet 

 and upwards, measured at the shoulder. Mr. 

 Corse says the greatest height ever measured by 

 him was ten feet six inches. As an example of the 

 deceptiveness of a mere conjecture even by experi- 

 enced persons, he mentions the case of an elephant 

 belonging to the Nabob of Decca, which was said 

 to be fourteen feet high. Mr. Corse wished to 

 measure particularly, as he himself judged him to 

 be twelve feet. The driver assured him that the 

 beast was from fifteen to eighteen feet ; — yet when 

 carefully measured, he did not exceed ten feet. 

 The Ceylon specimens rarely exceed nine feet ; yet 

 Wolf says, he saw one taken near Jaffna, which 

 measured twelve feet one inch, of course to the 

 arch of the back. 



The elephants of the farther peninsula much ex- 

 cel those of India and Ceylon, perhaps because 

 they are less disturbed. The skeleton of one in the 

 museum at St. Petersburg, which was sent to 

 Peter the Great by the Shah of Persia, measures 

 sixteen feet and a half in height; and probably 

 this is the highest authentic instance on record. 



The African elephant is perhaps not inferior to 

 that of Pegu. Mr. Pringle, in a very graphic 

 picture, has described an unexpected rencontre with 

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