which Emanuel of Portugal presented to Leo X. It was said of the Mogul emperor, Akbar, that he knew all the names of his many thousand elephants. The following is a portrait of Mr. Cross's elephant, when kneeling.

Female Elephant at Mr. Cross's Menagerie.

Whatever interest we may feel in the sagacity which is ordinarily displayed by the elephants of our common English menageries, the wretched state of confinement in which so large an animal is kept prevents us forming any adequate notions of many of its peculiarities. For this reason the recent exhibition of the elephant in a theatre has contri

buted very much to remove some of the popular prejudices concerning the quadruped, and to induce correct ideas of its peculiar movements. We cannot, indeed, upon a stage, see the animal bound about as in a state of nature-roll with delight in the mud, as Bruce has described it doing, to produce a crust upon its body which should be impervious to its tormentors the flies-collect water in its trunk, to spirt over its parched skin-and browse upon the tall branches of trees which it reaches with its proboscis. We shall not see these peculiarities of its native condition, till we have a proper receptacle for the elephant in our national menagerie, the Zoological Gardens. Without imputing blame to those who exhibit the elephant in this country, there is certainly great cruelty in shutting up in a miserable cage a creature who has such delight in liberty, and who is so obedient without be

ing restrained. The fine female elephant at Atkins's menagerie evidently suffers greatly under such severe durance. She has occasionally injured her keeper by pressing him against the wall of her cell, having scarcely room to turn round; and very recently, provoked perhaps by confinement, she deliberately attacked her proprietor, who went into the cage, and wounded him severely. This elephant is ordinarily very tractable; and her countenance, of which we give a portrait, appears to indicate great mildness and intelligence.

The elephants of the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, have, by comparison with the elephants of our close menageries, a life of much happiness. Their cells are spacious; they are let out, at particular periods, to

range about a large enclosure; and they have a bath which they enjoy with infinite delight in warm weather. We saw, in 1825, the large male (who is since dead) up to his middle in a pool, in a hot day in August, spouting the water from his trunk with scarcely less joy than he would feel in his native woods. When his bath was finished, he would stand quietly for a little time in the sun;-and then, gathering a quantity of dust in his trunk, blow it over his back till the crevices in his skin were sufficiently covered to be protected against the flies.

The close confinement of the elephant has doubtless a tendency to aggravate those periodical fits of rage to which the males are subject; and, moreover, these fits are much more fearful when the animal is pent up in a narrow cage. The pieces of oak which formed the bars of Chuni's cage were eight or ten inches square,-and yet he snapped them like matches. The elephants of India which are employed in domestic purposes, although subject to these fits, are rarely obliged to be destroyed. They are confined in a secure place till the effect is passed off. Again, elephants in the miserable cages of our menageries are liable not only to accidents, but to diseases which prevent them reaching the great age which is peculiar to this quadruped. The elephant of Louis XIV., which died at Versailles when he was seventeen years old, for the last five years of his life was obliged to be lifted up by a machine, when he lay down, which he rarely did. This was evidently an effect of confinement, which had so weakened the muscular power of his body as to give some probability to the old fable that the elephant, in a state of nature, always sleeps in a standing position against a tree*. Another elephant, which was

* Perrault, Mémoires, tom. ii. p.507.

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kept at Versailles in the time of Louis XV., was so impatient of confinement, that he one night broke his chains, tore down the door of his cage, and rushed to a muddy pond in the park, where he was suffocated*. The elephants which were taken by the French from Holland had been accustomed, when quite young, to wander unrestrained in the park of the Petit Loo, browsing on the trees, and assisting each other to reach the branches t. When they were placed in cages for

removal, being separated, the male soon shivered his prison to pieces, and their departure was delayed

VOL. II.

Houel, Histoire des deux Eléphans, p. 15.

†The cut is from M. Houel's design.

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