Volume 1
A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![' suction; it not only provides for the animal’s ' necessities and comforts, but it also serves for its ' ornament and defence. j But though the elephant he thus admirably 1 supplied by its trunk, yet with respect to the j rest of its conformation, it is unwieldy and help- ; less. The neck is so short that it can scarcely I turn the head, and must wheel round in order ! to discover an enemy from behind. The hun- I ters that attack it upon that quarter generally ' thus escape the effect of its indignation ; and find time to renew their assaults while the elephant is turning to face them. The legs are, indeed, not so inflexible as the neck, yet they are very stiff, and bend not without difficulty. Those before seem to be longer than the hinder; but upon being measured, are found to be something shorter. The joints, by which they bend, are nearly in the middle, like the knee of a man; and the great bulk which they are to support, makes their flexure ungainly. While the ele- phant is young, it bends the legs to lie down or to rise; but when it grows old, or sickly, this is not performed without human assistance, and it becomes, consequently, so inconvenient, that the animal chooses to sleep standing. The feet upon which these massy columns are supported, form a base scarcely broader than the legs they sus- tain. They are divided into five toes, which are ! covered beneath the skin, and none of which ap- j pear to the eye ; a kind of protuberance like claws are only observed, which vary in number j from three to five. The apparent claws vary; I the internal toes are constantly the same. The 1 sole of the foot is furnished with a skin as thick ! and hard as horn, and which completely covers I the whole under-part of the foot. To the rest of the elephant’s encumbrances I jured, the elephant becomes wild with rage and ter- i Vor. He is even afraid of a dead tiger, and carefully j puts his trunk out of reach. The instinct by which ! the creature defends and preserves this precious in- i strument, is in proportion to its paramount impor- I tance. Mr. Williamson saw an elephant whose trunk i had been cut through with a bill-hook ; and though I the wound was healed, the animal was perfectly helpless—unahle to supply its own food, and inca- pable even of travelling without danger. He was I fed with bundles of grass which were put into his ' mouth; had he been in a state of nature he must have perished. An affecting example of the instinct with which the elephant preserves his trunk, is ex- hibited in the death of the poor animal who was burned at Dublin. The author of the anatomical account says — ‘ ‘ Doubtless the elephant’s care to preserve the proboscis was great; for when w'e dis- sected him, we found it thrust near two feet into a very hard ground; upon xvhich account we thought it had been burned, till the head was divided from the body, and then we found it kept fast to the ground by the proboscis.” The care with which the ele- phant endeavours to put his trunk out of danger, makes him extremely cautious of using it as a wea- pon. He rarely strikes with it; though he will fre- quently throw clods and stones with it at objects which he dislikes. Elephants often thus attack hogs, i casting their missiles with tolerable force and preci- : I sion Ed. may be added its enormous tusks, which are un- serviceable for chewing, and are only weapons of defence. These, as the animal grows old, become so heavy, that it is sometimes obliged to make holes in the walls of its stall to rest them in, and ease itself of the fatigue of their support. It is well-known to what an amazing size these tusks grow; they are two in number, proceeding from ■the upper jaw, and are sometimes found above six feet long. Some have supposed them to be rather the horns than the teeth of this animal; but besides their greater similitude to bone than to horn, they have been indisputably found to grow from the upper jaw, and not from the fron- tal bones, as some have thought proper to assert.® Some also have asserted, that these tusks are shed in the same manner as the stag sheds its horns; but it is very probable, from their solid consistence, and from their accidental defects, which often appears to be the effect of a slow decay, that they are as fixed as the teeth of other animals are generally found to be. Certain it is, that the elephant never sheds them in a domes- tic state, but keeps them till they become incon- venient and cumbersome to the last degree. An account of the uses to which these teeth are ap- plied, and the manner of choosing the best ivory, belongs rather to a history of the arts than of nature. This animal is equally singular in other parts of its conformation; the lips and the tongue in other creatures serve to suck up and direct their drink or their food; but in the elephant they are totally inconvenient for such purposes; and it not only gathers its food with its trunk, but sup- plies itself with water by the same means. When ■ it eats hay, as I have seen it frequently, it takes ■ up a small wisp of it with the trunk, turns and shapes it with that instrument for some time, and then directs it into the mouth, where it is chewed by the great grinding teeth, that are large in proportion to the bulk of the animal. This pacquet, when chewed, is swallowed, and never ruminated again, as in cows or sheep, the stomach and intestines of this creature more re- sembling those of a horse. Its manner of drink- ing is equally extraordinary. For this purpose the elephant dips the end of its trunk into the water, and sucks up just as much as fills that great fleshy tube completely. It then lifts up its head with the trunk full, and turning the point into its mouth, as if it intended to swallow trunk and all, it drives the point below the opening of ] the windpipe. The trunk being in this position,, and still full of water, the elephant then blows strongly into it at the other end, which forces the water it contains into the throat; down which it is heard to pour with a loud gurgling noise, which oontinups till the whole is blown down. From this manner of drinking some have 6 See Mr. Daubenton’s description of the skeleton of this animal.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22014457_0001_0572.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
