e fibres descend
and can be distinctly traced to the cardiac orifice of the stomach.
Imperfectly acquainted with the habits and functions of the elephant in
a state of nature, Dr. HARRISON found it difficult to pronounce as to
the use of this very peculiar structure; but looking to the intimate
connection between the mechanism concerned in the functions of
respiration and deglutition, and seeing that the proboscis served in a
double capacity as an instrument of voice and an organ for the
prehension of food, he ventured (apparently without adverting to the
abnormal form of the stomach) to express the opinion that this muscle,
viewing its attachment to the trachea, might either have some influence
in raising the diaphragm, and thereby assisting in expiration, "_or that
it might raise the cardiac orifice of the stomach, and so aid this organ
to regurgitate a portion of its contents into the oesophagus_."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Proceed. Roy. Irish Acad_., vol. iv. p. 133.]

Dr. HARRISON, on the reflection that "we have no satisfactory evidence
that the animal ever ruminates," thought it useless to speculate on the
latter supposition as to the action of the newly discovered muscle, and
rather inclined to the surmise that it was designed to assist the
elephant in producing the remarkable sound through his proboscis known
as "trumpeting;" but there is little room to doubt that of the two the
rejected hypothesis was the more correct one. I have elsewhere described
the occurrence to which I was myself a witness[1], of elephants
inserting their proboscis in their mouths, and withdrawing gallons of
water, which could only have been contained in the receptacle figured by
CAMPER and HOME, and of which the true uses were discerned by the clear
intellect of Professor OWEN. I was not, till very recently, aware that a
similar observation as to the remarkable habit of the elephant, had been
made by the author of the _Ayeen Akbery_, in his account of the _Feel_
_Kaneh_, or elephant stables of the Emperor Akbar, in which he says, "an
elephant frequently with his trunk takes water out of his stomach and
sprinkles himself with it, and it is not in the least offensive."[2]
FORBES, in his Oriental Memoirs, quotes this passage of the _Ayeen
Akbery_, but without a remark; nor does any European writer with whose
works I am acquainted appear to have been cognisant of the peculiarity
in question.

[Footnote 1: In the account of an elephant corral, cha