Chap. III.] THE ELEPHANT. 
107 
months together to sleep without lying down. 1 So 
distinctive is this formation, and so self-sustaining the 
configuration of the limbs, that an elephant shot in the 
brain, by Major Eogers in 1836, was killed so instan- 
taneously that it died literally on its knees, and remained 
resting on them. About the year 1826, Captain Daw- 
son, the engineer of the great road to Kandy, over the 
Kaduganava pass, shot an elephant at Hangwelle on 
the banks of the Kalany Granga ; it remained on its feet, 
but so motionless, that after discharging a few more balls, 
he was induced to go close to it, and found it dead. 
The real peculiarity in the elephant in lying down is, 
that he extends his hind legs backwards as a man does 
when he kneels, instead of bringing them under him 
like the horse or any other quadruped. The wise pur- 
pose of this arrangement must be obvious to any one 
who observes the struggle with which the horse gets up 
from the ground, and the violent efforts which he 
makes to raise himself erect. Such an exertion in the 
case of the elephant, and the force requisite to apply 
a similar movement to raise his weight (equal to four 
or five tons) would be attended with a dangerous 
strain upon the muscles, and hence the simple arrange- 
ment, which by enabling him to draw the hind feet 
gradually under him, assists him to rise without a per- 
ceptible effort. 
The same construction renders his gait not a "gallop," 
1 So little is the elephant inclined phant to sleep on his legs, to the 
to lie down in captivity, and even difficulty he experiences in rising 
after hard labour, that the keepers to his feet : 
are generally disposed to suspect 
illness when he betakes himself to 'OpdoaTaSrjv 8e ml KtxdevSei iravvvx^s 
this posture. Phxle, in his poem ''Or' ovk avacrrrio-cu fievevxep&s TreAei. 
J)e Anrmalium Proprietate, attri- 
butes the propensity of the ele- But this is a misapprehension. 
