ant collections of
wild animals, when showing the elephant, to mention the story of its
having no joints, and its consequent inability to kneel; and they never
fail to think it necessary to demonstrate its untruth by causing the
animal to bend one of its fore-legs, and to kneel also."

[422] Sir Thomas Browne's Works, 1852, vol. i. pp. 220-232.

[423] Edited by Simon Wilkin, 1852, vol. i. p. 226.

In "Julius Caesar" (ii. 1) the custom of seducing elephants into
pitfalls, lightly covered with hurdles and turf, on which a proper bait
to tempt them was exposed, is alluded to.[424] Decius speaks of
elephants being betrayed "with holes."

[424] See Pliny's "Natural History," bk. viii.

_Fox._ It appears that the term fox was a common expression for the old
English weapon, the broadsword of Jonson's days, as distinguished from
the small (foreign) sword. The name was given from the circumstance that
Andrea Ferrara adopted a fox as the blade-mark of his weapons--a
practice, since his time, adopted by other foreign sword-cutlers. Swords
with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades are still occasionally
to be met with in the old curiosity shops of London.[425] Thus, in
"Henry V." (iv. 4), Pistol says:

"O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
Egregious ransom."

[425] Staunton's "Shakespeare," 1864, vol. ii. p. 367; Nares's
"Glossary," vol. i. p. 331.

In Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair" (ii. 6) the expression occurs: "What
would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a
basket-hilt, and an old fox in it?"

The tricks and artifices of a hunted fox were supposed to be very
extraordinary; hence Falstaff makes use of this expression in "1 Henry
IV." (iii. 3): "No more truth in thee than in a drawn fox."

_Goat._ It is curious that the harmless goat should have had an evil
name, and been associated with devil-lore. Thus, there is a common
superstition in England and Scotland that it is never seen for
twenty-four hours together; and that once in this space it pays a visit
to the devil, in order to have its beard combed. It was, formerly, too,
a popular notion that the devil appeared frequently in the shape of a
goat, which accounted for his horns and tail. Sir Thomas Browne observes
that the goat was the emblem of the sin-offering, and is the emblem of
sinful men at the day of judgment. This may, perhaps, account for
Shakespeare's