106 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. III. 



"Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast 

 Their ample shade on Niger's yellow stream, 

 Or where the Granges rolls his sacred waves, 

 Leans the huge Elephant." 1 



It is not difficult to see whence this antiquated delu- 

 sion took its origin ; nor is it, as Sir Thomas Bkowne 

 imagined, to be traced exclusively " to the grosse and 

 cylindrical 1 structure " of the animal's legs. The fact 

 is, that the elephant, returning in the early morning 

 from his nocturnal revels in the reservoirs and water- 

 courses, is accustomed to rub his muddy sides against 

 a tree, and sometimes against a rock if more convenient. 

 In my rides through the northern forests, the natives of 

 Ceylon have often pointed out that the elephants which 

 had preceded me must have been of considerable size, 

 from the height at which their marks had been left on 

 the trees against which they had been rubbing. Not 

 unfrequently the animals themselves, overcome with 

 drowsiness from the night's gambolling, are found 

 dosing and resting against the trees they had so visited, 

 and in the same manner they have been discovered by 

 sportsmen asleep, and leaning against a rock. 



It is scarcely necessary to explain that the position is 

 accidental, and that it is taken by the elephant not from 

 any difficulty in lying at length on the ground, but 

 rather from the coincidence that the structure of his 

 legs affords such support in a standing position, that 

 reclining scarcely adds to his enjoyment of repose ; and 

 elephants in a state of captivity have been known for 



in A..D. 1610; wherein he explains he), and when he is once down he 



that the elephant is " go proud of cannot rise up again." — Sec. in. ch. 



his strength that he never bows xii. p. 147. 



himself to any {neither indeed can 1 Thomson's Seasons, a.d. 1728, 



