Phile records the fact that elephants have two hearts. He argued that this was so, because the animal showed extremes of temperament,—one heart controlling the beast when good-humored and docile, and the other when it exhibited the characteristics of the rogue.
The older naturalists had few opportunities for making careful anatomical examinations of the elephant, and, naturally, fell into many errors; one of which was, that elephants from sixteen to twenty feet high were not uncommon. Major Denman observed some in Africa which he “guessed” were sixteen feet high; though he afterwards measured one that had been killed, which was twelve feet six inches at the back. Works were published in the last century, which gave the height of the animal as from twelve to fifteen feet; and Sir John Hill, M.D., in his “Natural History of Animals,” 1752, states that elephants were said to measure, when full grown, twenty feet at the shoulder.
It is needless to say that this was a gross exaggeration. Reference has been made, in a previous chapter, to the size of elephants; and it will be found that a twelve-foot animal is an extreme rarity. The skeleton that is preserved in the St. Petersburg museum, which is said to stand sixteen feet and a half high, is the tallest known, being a foot taller than the skeleton of the fossil elephant which was discovered at Jubbalpore. It is doubtful if the European mammoth or the American form, Elephas Americanus,—a tooth of which is shown in [Plate I.],—attained this height. One of the largest elephant skeletons to be seen in this country belongs to the Chicago Medical College, and represents an elephant shot in a gorge of the Himalaya Mountains, about a thousand miles from Calcutta, in 1865. Its dimensions are as follows:—
| FT. | IN. | |
|---|---|---|
| From top of shoulder to bottom of fore-foot | 11 | 2 |
| From top of head to root of tail | 12 | |
| Length of trunk, from root to tip | 7 | |
| Circumference of fore-arm | 6 | 3 |
| Circumference of fore-foot | 3 | 3 |
The following are measurements of a large African male elephant, made by Thomas Baines, F.R.G.S., which show the average dimensions of an animal of the largest size:—
Some extremely interesting measurements have been made of the skeleton of the elephant Jumbo, by Professor Ward of Rochester, who compares them, in a pamphlet, with a skeleton of the Mastodon giganteus, discovered at Orange County, N.Y. It is too lengthy and technical to be introduced in this connection. The measurements already given are sufficient to show that the elephants of over eleven or twelve feet are extremely rare, while those of eighteen and twenty belong to the world of fiction.
The absence of joints was a feature of the elephant, according to some of the old writers. Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” says, “It hath no joynts;” and “being unable to lye down, it lieth against a tree, which the hunters observing doe saw almost asunder, whereon the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls also downe itselfe, and is able to rise no more.” Sir Thomas thinks that “the hint and ground of this opinion might be the grosse and somewhat cylindrical composure of the legs of the elephant, and the equality and less perceptible disposure of the joynts, especially in the fore-legs of the animal, they appearing, when he standeth, like pillars of flesh.”
The honor of discovering jointless animals belongs properly to Pliny, who described the machlis, a Scandinavian animal without joints. Cæsar, in describing the wild animals of the Hercynian forests, mentions the alce, “in color and configuration approaching the goat, but surpassing it in size, its head destitute of horns, and its limbs of joints.” It is evident that Aristotle had some doubt as to whether elephants possessed joints in their knees; and Ælian, writing two hundred years later, perpetuated the error, expressing his surprise that the elephants in Rome could dance, when they had no joints. This fiction was taken up by the poets of the time, and is found in many old writings. Phile, a contemporary of Dante, addressed a poem on the elephant to the Emperor Andross II., in which he expressed the same belief; and Solinus introduced it into his fable “Polyhistor.” Though the error was corrected in the year 802, it was revived by Matthew Paris in the thirteenth century, who made a drawing of the elephant presented to King Henry III. by the King of France, in 1255. The animal was represented without joints.