288 MAMMALIA-ELEPHANT. 



Although the elephant has a more retentive memory, and more intelli- 

 gence than any other animal, he has the brain smaller than most of them ; 

 he is, at the same time, a miracle of intelligence and a monster of matter; 

 his body is very thick, without any suppleness ; the neck is short and very 

 stiflf ; the head small and deformed ; the ears of an excessive diameter ; and 

 the nose is of a still more disproportionate length ; the eyes are too small, 

 as well as the mouth ; his legs are like massive pillars, straight and stiff; 

 the feet so short and so small, that he seems to have none ; the skin is hard, 

 thick, and callous. All these deformities are remarkable, as all of them are 

 exhibited on a large scale ; and they are more disagreeable to the eye, as 

 most of them have no other example in the creation ; no other animal 

 having either the head, the feet, the nose, the ears, or the tusks, %iade or 

 placed like those of the elephant. 



The elephant is yet singular in the conformation of the feet and the 

 texture of the skin. He is not clothed with hair like other quadrupeds ; his 

 skin is bare ; some bristles issue out of the chops ; they are very thin on the 

 body, and thicker on the eyelids, on the back part of the head, Avithin the 

 ears, the thighs, and the legs. The epidermis, or outside skin, hard and 

 callous, has two sorts of wrinkles, some hollow, others prominent. In man, 

 and other animals, the epidermis sticks every where close to the skin. In 

 the elephant, it is only fastened by some points, like two quilted stuffs one 

 above the other. This epidermis is naturally dry, and soon acquires three 

 or four lines of thickness, by the crusts which are generated one above the 

 other drying up. It is this thickness of the epidermis which produces the 

 elephantiasis, or dry leprosy, to which man, whose skin is bare, like that of 

 the elephant, is sometimes subject. This distemper is very common to 

 elephants ; and, to prevent it, the Indians take care to rub them often with 

 oil, and to preserve the skin supple by frequent bathing. It is rather tender 

 where it is not callous ; and the elephant is so fearful of the sting of the flies, 

 that he not only employs his natural motions, but even the resources of his 

 intelligence, to get rid of them ; he makes use of his tail, of his ears, of his 

 trunk, to strike them ; he contracts his skin wherever he can, and squeezes 

 them to death betwixt the wrinkles. He cleans his skin by rubbing it with 

 pumice stones, and afterwards pours on it perfumed oil and colors. The 

 conformation of the feet and legs is also singular, and different in the 

 elephant from that of other animals; the fore legs seem to be higher than 

 those behind, yet the hind legs are the longest ; they are not bent like the 

 hind legs of a horse or an ox, the thighs of which seem to be of the same 

 piece with the buttocks ; their knee is very near the belly, and the foot so 

 high and so long, that it seems to make a great part of the leg. In the 

 elephant, on the contrary, this part is very short, and touches the ground • 

 he has the knee, like man, in the middle of the leg, not near the belly. 

 This foot, so short and so small, is divided into five toes, which are all co- 

 vered with a skin, none appearing outwardly ; one sees only a sort of claws, 



