THE INDIAN ELEPHANT 3 



a big elephant. Sanderson — no mean judge — 

 refuses to believe in a 10-ft. elephant ; but, though 

 the opinion of so great an authority must be 

 given full weight, there is no doubt that occasion- 

 ally elephants do attain the height of 10 ft., and 

 sometimes over. Several have been recorded 

 over 10 ft. in height from Burma alone. I 

 myself once shot an enormous elephant, by far 

 the biggest I have ever seen. It was impossible 

 to take his body measurement, as he fell with 

 his forelegs doubled up under him, and lay 

 more or less on his chest. But I took the exact 

 measurements of his feet with a steel tape, both 

 before they were cut off and afterwards, in the 

 presence of several witnesses. They measured 

 exactly 5 ft. 4 in. in circumference, both feet 

 being the same size to within a fraction of an 

 inch. Twice the circumference of an elephant's 

 foot gives his height at the shoulder almost 

 exactly. I have at different times purposely 

 taken the body measurements of several ele- 

 phants for comparison with those of the forefeet, 

 and have invariably found the two measurements 

 to correspond, the difference never exceeding 

 an inch, and usually being considerably less. 

 So that the elephant referred to above could not 

 have been less than 10 ft. 7 in. at the shoulder, 

 and may have stood as high as 10 ft. 9 in. His 

 tusks weighed 99| lbs. the pair. Such monsters 

 are, of course, very rare ; but elephants over 9 ft. 

 at the shoulder are not uncommon, and I think I 



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