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youthful enjoyment; so that here also the sum of happiness is increased.

ELEVENTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

THICK-SKINNED QUADRUPEDS. THE ELEPHANT.

THE elephant, which is the last example of the lower animals I shall notice, may rather be said to be a tamed than a domestic animal. It is seldom reared from the birth in those countries where it is employed for the use of man, as it is found more advantageous to obtain it in its wild state, when already some years old. The possibility, indeed, of raising it in a domestic state was long doubted, but this is now found to be a prejudice connected with some superstitious notions.

The elephant is the largest animal which now treads the surface of our globe, although it dwindles to a pigmy when compared with some of the inhabitants of the earth, in a primeval period. There are peculiarities in its form, which exhibit a remarkable adaptation to its enormous bulk. Among these, has been noticed the formation of its legs, which differ from those of all other animals, in being strong and massive pillars, evidently framed, with admirable mechanical skill, for sustaining an immense weight. But the most remarkable contrivances for counteracting the inconvenience arising from gravity, are to be found in the neck and proboscis. The head, itself large, contains two heavy tusks, and the weight could not be conveniently borne at the end of a long neck; besides that the animal was to be formed with the power of raising immense weights with this portion of its body. The neck is therefore formed comparatively very short, so that it will not admit of the mouth reaching the ground to feed. But to counterbalance this defect, and also to overcome the difficulty arising from the tusks, the elephant is provided with an instrument of admirable structure, in its proboscis or trunk, which has been thus described :—

It is composed entirely of bundles of muscular fibres enclosing two canals. By their contraction or relaxation, these muscles are capable of drawing up, shooting out, or twisting in any direction, the organ which they compose indeed, the pliability and : power it possesses, may, in some degree, be conceived from the account of Cuvier, who has ascertained that the number of distinct muscles, each having its distinct action, is not far short of forty thousand. Hence that union of strength and precision, force and address, which this exquisite piece of mechanism exhibits. The canals of the proboscis, are for the purpose of drawing up any liquid, which is afterwards discharged into the throat, or over the body, at pleasure. They are, in fact, two self-acting syringes. The proboscis itself, is terminated with a flexible instrument, called a finger, which serves a purpose not unlike the human finger, as, by pressing against the division between the two canals, it can hold any small object with the greatest facility. With this little instrument, it can even pick up a pin; and hence this noble animal is endowed with the faculty, almost peculiar, except in this instance, to man, of examining objects with precision by the touch, which, in conjunction with its native intelligence, has ranked it as the first of quadrupeds, even when judged of by a more honorable criterion than that of bulk.

The first and most essential property of the trunk is to supply the animal with food; for with this, it can despoil the trees of their young shoots and leaves, overturn the mimosa trees, that it may feed on their succulent roots, and crop the herbage of the fields. But it also employs this instrument in various other ways, as occasion requires, especially when employed in the service of man. It rarely, however, uses it as a weapon of offence, seeming sensible of its value, and carefully preserving it from injury.

The average height of the elephant is nine or ten feet, though it frequently rises as high as fifteen feet. Its weight varies from four to nine thousand pounds. When tamed, it becomes the most gentle, obedient, and affectionate of domestic animals, capable of being trained to

any

service necessary it is a native.

in those warm countries of which

Only two species of the elephant at present exist, the Asiatic and African; but the remains of several extinct species are met with in almost every part of the world, particularly in Asiatic Russia.

Elephants hold undisputed sway in the mighty forests which they inhabit; their immense size, united strength, and great swiftness, enabling them to dislodge all intruders on their abode. The lion and tiger avoid such formidable assailants, and leave them in undisputed possession of their forest. Seemingly sensible of the large supply of food which they require, they will allow no animal, however peaceable, to browse in their territories, of which they hold exclusive possession; and they can. only exist in those extensive woody ranges, or immense plains, where vegetation abounds in all its wild luxuri

ance.

The strength of the elephant, conjoined with its sagacity, renders it a most efficient servant, where extraordinary animal force is required, as in dragging ships, heavy stores, and ordnance. Captain Williamson observes, that many of our most arduous military operations have been greatly indebted for their success to the sagacity, patience, and exertion of the elephant; and states, in particular, that, "when cannon require to be extricated from sloughs, the elephant, placing his forehead on the muzzle, which, when limbered, is the rear of the piece, with an energy scarcely to be conceived, will urge it through a bog, from which hundreds of oxen or horses could not drag it. At other times, lapping his trunk round the cannon, he will lift while the cattle and men pull forwards."

The quickness of comprehension displayed by this noble animal, has justly procured for him the appellation of the "half-reasoning elephant." "I have, myself," says an officer who served in India, seen the wife of a mohaut* (for the followers often take their families with

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*[The mohaut, otherwise spelt mahoot, is the driver or conductor of the elephant.-AM. ED.]

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them to the camp) give a babe in charge to an elephant, while she went on some business, and have been highly amused in observing the sagacity and care of the unwieldy nurse." In corroboration of this statement, I notice the curious fact mentioned in the Philosomay phical Transactions,' of the attachment of an elephant to an infant. He was said never to have been happy except when the infant was near him. The nurse, therefore, frequently took the child in its cradle, and placed the latter between his feet. He at last refused his meat when the infant was absent. When it was asleep, he watched it with much solicitude, and drove off the flies with its trunk as they approached. If it awoke and cried, he would rock the cradle, till it again fell asleep.

A thousand well-authenticated accounts of the sagacity, the docility, the quick sense of injury, and the affectionate disposition of the elephant are stated, from which I shall only select one wellknown example, that is at once characteristic of almost all these qualities. "Some years ago, an elephant at Deccan, from a motive of revenge, killed its conductor. The wife of the unfortunate man was witness to the dreadful scene; and, in the frenzy of her mental agony, took her two children, and threw them at the feet of the elephant, saying, 'Take my life also, and that of my children!' The elephant, becoming instantly calm, seemed to relent; and, as if stung with remorse, took up the eldest boy with his trunk, placed him on his neck, adopted him for his cornac,* and never afterwards allowed another to occupy that seat."

ELEVENTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

REFLECTIONS ON THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

"DEPRIVE man of the ox, the dog, and the horse," says Dr. Macculloch," and he could not maintain his

ED.]

[Cornac is another name for the conductor of the elephant.-AM.

position in the world for a year; he never could have attained the one which he holds, nor could he discover a compensation." He who reflects on the vast importance these animals are to the comfort and convenience of man, and on the addition which they afford to his power, will at once perceive that there is no exaggeration in this assertion. It may be true, that, as society advances in civilization, new modes of acquiring power, and new means of increasing our comforts and conveniences, may be discovered, which shall leave these immediately accessible gifts of the Creator far behind; but even should the uses of the domestic animals be destined to be superseded or excelled by the inventions of man, in a highly improved state, who will venture to say, that they were not necessary to assist him in arriving at that state?

And let it not be said, that the properties of these animals have been only accidentally fitted for the use of man, and that he is entirely indebted to his own ingenuity, in the appropriation of instincts and faculties destined by Nature solely for a different purpose, for the existence or the happiness of the animal itself. This view may be disproved, and indeed I think I may confidently say, has already been disproved, by reference to the nature of these instincts and faculties, and, it may be added, by reference to the very form and bodily structure of the creatures we have subjugated. That the horse is made for a rider, and the ox for patient endurance of fatigue, and the dog for a thousand little offices, which contribute to the comfort of man, no person who candidly considers the correspondence of their forms with the nature of their faculties, and the correspondence of these, again, with the wants of the human race, can, without a most inveterate and perverse skepticism, allow himself for a moment to doubt.

One very remarkable fact, which has already come under our notice, in regard to the subject of domestication, is the effect which an intercourse of the lower animals with man for many generations produces, in changing their habits, their dispositions, their very bodily form, fitting them more perfectly for the supply of his various

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