[64] RANDAL HOME’S _Academy of Armory_, A. D. 1671. HOME only perpetuated the error of GUILLIM, who wrote his _Display of Heraldry_ in A. D. 1610; wherein he explains that the elephant is “so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any (_neither indeed can he_), and when he is once down he cannot rise up again.” (Sec. iii. ch. xii. p. 147.) [65] THOMSON’S _Seasons_, A. D. 1728. [66] So little is the elephant inclined to lie down in captivity, and even after hard labour, that the keepers are generally disposed to suspect illness when he betakes himself to this posture. PHILE, in his poem _De Animalium Proprietate_, attributes the propensity of the elephant to sleep on his legs, to the difficulty he experiences in rising to his feet: Ὀρθοστάδην δὲ καὶ καθεύδει παννύχως Ὅτ’ οὺκ ἀναστῆσαι μὲν εὐχερῶς πέλει. But this is a misapprehension. [67] _Menageries_, _etc._ “The Elephant,” ch. i. Sir CHARLES BELL, in his essay on _The Hand and its Mechanism_, which forms one of the “Bridgewater 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. [Illustration] [68] _Menageries_, _etc._ “The Elephant,” ch. ii. [69] Dr. HOOKER, in describing the ascent of the Himalayas, says, the natives in making their paths despise all zigzags, and run in straight lines up the steepest hill faces; whilst “the elephant’s path is an excellent specimen of engineering—the opposite of the native track,—for it winds judiciously.” (_Himalayan Journal_, vol. i. ch. iv.) [70] _Ceylon Observer_, March 1865. [71] Since the above passage was written, I have seen in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, vol. xiii. pt. ii. p. 916, a paper upon this subject, illustrated by the subjoined diagram.