108 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. 



as it has been somewhat loosely described 1 , which would 

 be too violent a motion for so vast a body; but a shuffle, 

 that he can increase at pleasure to a pace as rapid as 

 that of a man at full speed, but which he cannot main- 

 tain for any considerable distance. 



It is to the structure of the knee-joint that the ele- 

 phant is indebted for his singular facility in ascending 

 and descending steep aclivities, climbing rocks and tra- 

 versing precipitous ledges, where even a mule dare not 



1 Menageries, Sfc. "The elephant," 

 ch. i. 



Sir Charles Bell, in his essay- 

 on The Hand and its Mechanism, 

 which forms one of the " Bridge- 

 water Treatises," has exhibited the 

 reasons deducible from organisation, 

 which show the incapacity of the 

 elephant to spring or leap like the 

 horse and other animals whose 

 structure is designed to facilitate 

 agility and speed. In them the 

 various bones of the shoulder and 

 fore limbs, especially the clavicle 

 and humerus, are set at such an 

 angle, that the shock in descending 

 is modified, and the joints and 



sockets protected from the injury 

 occasioned by concussion. But in 

 the elephant, where the weight of 

 the body is immense, the bones of 

 the leg, in order to present solidity 

 and strength to sustain it, are built 

 in one firm and perpendicular 

 column ; instead of being placed 

 somewhat obliquely at their points 

 of contact. Thus whilst the force 

 of the weight in descending is 

 broken and distributed by this 

 arrangement in the case of the 

 horse ; it would be so concentrated 

 in the elephant as to endanger 

 every joint from the toe to the 

 shoulder. 



