JOO MAMMALIA. [Chap. HI. 



the largest when killed was found to measure nine feet 

 six, from th^foot to the hip-bone. 1 



For a creature of such extraordinary weight it is asto- 

 nishing how noiselessly and stealthily the elephant can 

 escape from a pursuer. When suddenly disturbed 

 in the jungle, it will burst away with a rush that seems 

 to bear down all before it ; but the noise sinks into 

 absolute stillness so suddenly, that a novice might well 

 be led to suppose that the fugitive had only halted within 

 a few yards of him, when further search will disclose 

 that it has "stolen silently away, making scarcely a 

 sound in its escape ; and, stranger still, leaving the 

 foliage almost undisturbed by its passage. 



The most venerable delusion respecting the elephant, 

 and that which held its ground with unequalled tenacity, 

 is the ancient fallacy which is explained by Sik Thomas 

 Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, that "it hath no 

 joynts ; and this absurdity is seconded by another, that 

 being unable to lye downe it sleepeth against a tree, 

 which the hunters observing doe saw almost asunder, 

 whereon the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls 

 also downe it-selfe and is able to rise no more." 2 Sir 

 Thomas is disposed to think that " the hint and ground 

 of this opinion might be the grosse and somewhat 

 cylindricall composure of the legs of the elephant, and 

 the equality and lesse perceptible disposure of the 

 joynts, especially in the forelegs of this animal, they 



1 Denham's Travels, $c, 4to Falconer "that out of eleven hun- 

 p. 220. The fossil remains of the dred elephants from which the tall- 

 Indian elephant have been dis- est were selected and measured 

 covered at Jabalpur, showing a with care, on one occasion in India, 

 height of fifteen feet. — Journ. there was not one whose height 

 Asiat. Soc, Beng. vi. Professor equalled eleven feet." 

 Ansted in his Ancient World, p. 2 Vulgar Errors, book iii. chap. 1. 

 197, says he was informed by Dr. 



