ugh the opinion at present be
reasonably well suppressed, yet from the strings of tradition and
fruitful recurrence of errour, it was not improbable it might revive in
the next generation;"[1]--an anticipation which has proved singularly
correct; for the heralds still continued to explain that the elephant is
the emblem of watchfulness, "_nec jacet in somno,"_[2] and poets almost
of our own times paint the scene when

"Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade on Niger's yellow stream,
Or where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves,
_Leans_ the huge Elephant."[3]

[Footnote 1: Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, A.D. 1646.]

[Footnote 2: RANDAL HOME'S _Academy of Armory_, A.D. 1671. HOME
only perpetuated the error of GUILLAM, who wrote his _Display of
Heraldry_ in A.D. 1610; wherein he explains that the elephant is
"so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any
(_neither indeed can he_), and when he is once down he cannot
rise up again."--Sec. III. ch. xii. p. 147.]

[Footnote 3: THOMSON'S _Seasons_, A.D. 1728.]

It is not difficult to see whence this antiquated delusion took its
origin; nor is it, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE imagined, to be traced
exclusively "to the grosse and cylindricall structure" of the animal's
legs. The fact is, that the elephant, returning in the early morning
from his nocturnal revels in the reservoirs and water-courses, is
accustomed to rub his muddy sides against a tree, and sometimes
against a rock if more convenient. In my rides through the northern
forests, the natives of Ceylon have often pointed out that the
elephants which had preceded me must have been of considerable size,
from the height at which their marks had been left on the trees
against which they had been rubbing. Not unfrequently the animals
themselves, overcome with drowsiness from the night's gambolling, are
found dosing and resting against the trees they had so visited, and in
the same manner they have been discovered by sportsmen asleep, and
leaning against a rock.

It is scarcely necessary to explain that the position is accidental, and
that it is taken by the elephant not from any difficulty in lying at
length on the ground, but rather from the coincidence that the structure
of his legs affords such support in a standing position, that reclining
scarcely adds to his enjoyment of repose; and elephants in a state of
captivity have been known for months together to sleep without lying
do