The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/412 (page 44)
    joint which unites the hoof, the horse has three bones in the leg,—the elephant has two. For this reason the horse moves with an elastic pace, while the elephant has a grave and stiff progression;— and this want of elasticity renders it disagreeable to ride on him for any distance. It will be evident also, from an inspection of the two skeletons, why the horse, in kneeling, brings his hind-legs under his body, while those of the elephant go behind him, exactly in the same way as man kneels. The legs of the elephant are supported upon broad hoofs, each terminated, in the adult animal, by five nails. The whole number of nails is seldom deve- loped on the hind feet. The author of Oriental Field Sports says, “ To please a native, there should be five on each fore-foot, and four on each hind foot: odd numbers are considered by them as unlucky *. I have known some with fifteen nails, which no native would purchase; and I have heard of one with twenty: but I do not recollect seeing one with more than eighteen.” The sole of an elephant’s foot is nearly circular; and in one of eight feet high is about twelve inches in diameter. Supported, then, upon these solid pillars, an elephant moves forward in search of food. His diet is wholly vegetable. The intestines are formed upon the same principle as in the horse. It has been observed by Sir Everard Home, that “ the colon in animals that live upon the same species of food is of a greater length in proportion to the scantiness of the supply. Among quadrupeds this may be illus- trated by the length of the colon in the elephant being only twenty feet six inches, while in the dromedary it is forty-two. The first inhabits the fertile woods of Asia; the latter the arid deserts of * This is almost the only exception to the universal faith in odd numbers. .