ican elephant's fore-foot is found by hunters
to be half the animal's height at the shoulder, and is regarded as
furnishing a trustworthy indication of his stature.

The legs of the elephant differ from those of more familiar large
animals in the fact that the ankle and the wrist (the so-called knee
of the horse's foreleg) are not far above the sole of the foot
(resembling man's joints in this respect), whilst the true knee-joint
(called "the stifle" in horses)--instead of being, as in horses, high
up, close against the body, strongly flexed even when at rest, and
obscured by the skin--is far below the body, free and obvious enough.
In fact, the elephant keeps the thigh and the upper arm perpendicular
and in line with the lower segment of the limb when he is standing, so
that the legs are pillar-like. But he bends the joints amply when in
quick movement. The hind legs seen in action resemble, in the
proportions of thigh, foreleg, and foot, and the bending at the knee
and ankle, very closely those of a man walking on "all fours." The
elephant as known in Europe more than 300 years ago was rarely seen in
free movement. He was kept chained up in his stall, resting on his
straight, pillar-like legs and their pad-like feet. And with that
curious avidity for the marvellous which characterized serious writers
in those days to the exclusion of any desire or attempt to ascertain
the truth, it was coolly asserted, and then commonly believed, that
the elephant could not bend his legs. Shakespeare--who, of course, is
merely using a common belief of his time as a chance illustration of
human character--makes Ulysses say (referring to his own stiffness of
carriage) ("Troilus and Cressida," Act II) "The elephant hath joints,
but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for
flexure." An old writer says: "The elephant hath no joints, and, being
unable to lye down, it lieth against a tree, which, the hunters
observing, do saw almost asunder; whereon the beast relying--by the
fall of the tree falls also down itself, and is able to rise no more."
Another old writer (Bartholomew, 1485), says, more correctly: "When
the elephant sitteth he bendeth his feet; he bendeth the hinder legs
right as a man."

A writer of 120 years later in date (Topsell) says: "In the River
Ganges there are blue worms of sixty cubits long having two arms;
these when the elephants come to drink in that river take their trunks
in their hands and pull t