ng
with his trunk the axle of a field-piece as the wheel was about to
pass over a fallen gunner, which he declares to be a physical
impossibility. Certainly the story has many elements of
improbability about it, and his comments on it are caustic and
amusing: _par exemple_, when he asks: "How did the elephant know that
a wheel going over the man would not be agreeable to him?" That is
the weak point in the story--but, however intelligent the animal
might be, Mr. Sanderson says it is physically impossible.

Another thing that strikes every one is the noiseless tread of this
huge beast. To describe the mechanism of the foot of the elephant
concisely and simply I am going to give a few extracts from the
observations of Professor W. Boyd Dawkins and Messrs. Oakley, Miall,
and Greenwood: "It stands on the ends of its five toes, each of which
is terminated by comparatively small hoofs, and the heel-bone is a
little distance from the ground. Beneath comes the wonderful cushion
composed, of membranes, fat, nerves, and blood-vessels, besides
muscles, which constitutes the sole of the foot" (_W. B. D. and H.
O._). "Of the foot as a whole--and this remark apples to both fore
and hind extremities--the separate mobility of the parts is greater
than would be suspected from an external inspection, and much greater
than in most Ungulates. The palmar and plantar soles, though thick
and tough, are not rigid boxes like hoofs, but may be made to bend
even by human fingers. The large development of muscles acting upon
the carpus and tarsus, and the separate existence of flexors and
extensors of individual digits, is further proof that the elephant's
foot is far from being a solid unalterable mass. There are, as has
been pointed out, tendinous or ligamentous attachments which
restrain the independent action of some of these muscles, but
anatomical examinations would lead us to suppose that the living
animal could at all events accurately direct any part of the
circumference of the foot by itself to the ground. The metacarpal
and metatarsal bones form a considerable angle with the surface of
the sole, while the digits, when supporting the weight of the body,
are nearly horizontal" (_M. and G._). This formation would naturally
give elasticity to the foot, and, with the soft cushion spoken of
by Professor Dawkins, would account for the noiselessness of the
elephant's tread. On one occasion a friend and myself marched our
elephant up to a slee