[42] Pallegoix, in his Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam, adverts to a sound produced by the elephant when weary: “quand il est fatigué, il frappe la terre avec sa trompe, et en tire un son semblable à celui du cor.” (Tom. i. p. 151.)
[43] For an explanation of the term “rogue” as applied to an elephant, see p. 47.
[44] Natural History of Animals. By Sir John Hill, M.D. London, 1748-52, p. 565. A probable source of these false estimates is mentioned by a writer in the Indian Sporting Review for Oct. 1857. “Elephants were measured formerly, and even now, by natives, as to their height, by throwing a rope over them, the ends brought to the ground on each side, and half the length taken as the true height. Hence the origin of elephants fifteen and sixteen feet high. A rod held at right angles to the measuring rod, and parallel to the ground, will rarely give more than ten feet, the majority being under nine.” (P. 159)
[45] Shaw’s Zoology. Lond. 1806. vol. i. p. 216; Armandi, Hist. Milit. des Eléphants, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2.
[46] Wolf’s Life and adventures, etc. p. 164. Wolf was a native of Mecklenburg, who arrived in Ceylon about 1750, as chaplain in one of the Dutch East Indiamen, and having been taken into the Government employment, he served for twenty years at Jaffna, first as Secretary to the Governor, and afterwards in an office the duties of which he describes to be the examination and signature of the “writings which served to commence a suit in any of the courts of justice.” His book embodies a truthful and generally accurate account of the northern portion of the island, with which alone he was conversant, and his narrative gives a curious insight into the policy of the Dutch Government, and of the condition of the natives under their dominion.
[47] Denham’s Travels, etc. 4to, p. 220. Fossil remains of the Indian elephant have been discovered at Jabalpur, showing a height of fifteen feet. (Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. vi.) Professor Ansted in his Ancient World, p. 197, says he was informed by Dr. Falconer “that out of eleven hundred elephants from which the tallest were selected and measured with care, on one occasion in India, there was not one whose height equalled eleven feet.”
[48] Vulgar Errors, book iii. chap. 1. The earliest English writer who promulgated this error was Alexander Neckham, who in his treatise De Naturis Rerum, composed in the 12th century, quotes Cassiodorus and accepts his assertion that the elephant has no joints, chap. cxliii. Neckham repeats the statement in his poem De Laudibus Divinæ Sapientiæ, v. 47.
[49] Machlis (said to be derived from α, priv., and κλίνω, cubo, quod non cubat). “Moreover in the island of Scandinavia there is a beast called Machlis, that hath neither ioynt in the hough, nor pasternes in his hind legs, and therefore he never lieth down, but sleepeth leaning to a tree, wherefore the hunters that lie in wait for these beasts cut downe the trees while they are asleepe, and so take them; otherwise they should never be taken, they are so swift of foot that it is wonderful.” (Pliny, Natur. Hist. Transl. Philemon Holland, book viii. ch. xv. p. 200.)
[50] “Sunt item quæ appellantur Alces. Harum est consimilis capreis figura, et varietas pellium; sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt, mutilæque sunt cornibus, et crura sine nodis articulisque habent; neque quietis causa procumbunt; neque, si quo afflictæ casu considerunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus; ad eas sese applicant, atque ita, paulum modo reclinatæ, quietem capiunt, quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consueverint, omnes eo loco, aut a radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores tantum, ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere affligunt, atque una ipsæ concidunt.” (Cæsar, De Bello Gall. lib. vi. ch. xxvii.)