134 



and liquid. Viewing the attachments of this muscle, we may 

 consider its power or action as twofold ; first, supposing the 

 trachea to be its fixed point, it might have some influence in 

 raising the diaphragm, and thereby assisting in expiration ; or 

 it might raise the cardiac orifice of the stomach, and so aid 

 this organ to regurgitate a portion of its contents into the 

 oesophagus: as, however, we have no satisfactory evidence that 

 this animal ever ruminates, it is useless to speculate on this 

 supposed action of this muscle. Secondl}^ if we regard the 

 oesophageal extremity of this muscle as the fixed point, and 

 which we are entitled to do from its close connexion to the 

 diaphragm and to the surrounding elastic tissue, it may then 

 exert a twofold action on the trachea ; first, it may dilate the 

 thin and dilatable portion at its bifurcation, and thus assist in 

 forming a reservoir of air previous to its forcible expulsion ; or 

 secondly, by depressing and fixing the trachea during the act 

 of expiration, it may perhaps contribute to the more powerful 

 expulsion of the air, by enabling the expiratory agents to act 

 with concentrated energy on the lungs and on the air passages 

 above, in those violent expiratory acts which the animal so 

 frequently performs, as in blowing through the proboscis so as 

 to produce loud trumpet-sounds, or in ejecting the water which 

 he had previously drawn through it into the fauces, and which 

 he is enabled to eject with extraordinary force, — sometimes 

 upwards into the air, apparently for pleasure, sometimes at his 

 Qpemy, in anger, — and frequently over different portions of his 

 body, for the purpose of removing irritation from the skin, or 

 for refreshing and cooling its surface, when exposed to a 

 burning sun. 



Although the elephant and horse are placed by naturalists in 

 the one class, the ' Pacchydermata, ' yet they difi'er materially 

 in many parts of their organization, and in none more than in 

 the anatomy of the larynx and trachea. The os hyoides and 

 laryngeal cartilages are very large in the elephant, but pos- 

 sess little elasticity, a property eminently remarkable in those 



