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 ^OpdoardB'qv 5e koI KaBevSei iravvvx<»s 

 this posture. Prtle, in his poem "Or* ovk avaa-TTjaai fxevevxcpcos WAet. 

 De Animalium Proprietate, attri- 

 butes the propensity of the ele- But this is a misapprehension. 



