102 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. III. 



appears to have been embodied in his lost work on India. 

 But although Akistotle generally receives the credit of 

 having exposed and demolished the fallacy of Ctesias^ it 

 will be seen by a reference to his treatise On the Pro- 

 gressive Motions of Animals, that in reality he ap- 

 proached the question with some hesitation, and has not 

 only left it doubtful in one passage whether the ele- 

 phant has joints in Ms knee, although he demonstrates 

 that it has joints in the shoulders 1 ; but in another 

 he distinctly affirms that on account of his weight the 

 elephant cannot bend his forelegs together, but only one 

 at a time, and reclines to sleep on that particular side. 2 

 So great was the authority of Akistotle, that ^Elian, 

 who wrote two centuries later and borrowed many of his 

 statements from the works of his predecessor, perpetuates 

 this error ; and, after describing the exploits of the 

 trained elephants exhibited at Eome, adds the expres- 

 sion of his surprise, that an animal without joints 

 (avapOpov) should yet be able to dance. 3 The fiction 

 was too agreeable to be readily abandoned by the poets 



1 "When an animal moves pro- Be Ingressu Ariim., ch. ix. Taylor's 



gressively an hypothenuse is pro- Transl. 



duced, which is equal in power to 2 Aristotle, Be Animal. , lib. ii. 

 the magnitude that is quiescent, ch. i. It is curious that Taylor, in 

 and to that which is intermediate, his translation of this passage, was 

 But since the members are equal, so strongly imbued with the "grey- 

 it is necessary that the member headed errour," that in order to 

 which is quiescent should be in- elucidate the somewhat obscure 

 fleeted either in the knee or in the meaning of Aristotle, he has actually 

 incurvation, if the animal that interpolated the text with the ex- 

 walks is without knees. It is pos- ploded fallacy of Ctesias, and after 

 sible, however, for the leg to be the word reclining to sleep, has in- 

 moved, when not inflected, in the serted the words "leaning against 

 same manner as infants creep; and some wall or tree" which are not to 

 there is an ancient report of this be found in the original, 

 kind about elephants, which is not 3 "Zepov Se dvapBpov avvidvai koX 

 true, for such animals as these, pvOfiov teal /jl4\ovs, koI (pvKdrrtEiv 

 are moved in consequence of an in- crxvi^ 0 - tyvaecos S&pa ravra dfxa ku\ 

 flection taking place either in their I^iSttjs Ka0' e/caaToj/ sKTrX-qKTini)" — . 

 shoulders or hips" — Akistotle, JELiAn^eNatAnim.ylib. ii.cap. xi. 



