Note 48 — Chapter II · HABITS WHEN WILD.
Reading edition
Vulgar Errors, book iii. chap. 1. The earliest English writer who promulgated this error was Alexander Neckham, who in his treatise De Naturis Rerum, composed in the 12th century, quotes Cassiodorus and accepts his assertion that the elephant has no joints, chap. cxliii. Neckham repeats the statement in his poem De Laudibus Divinæ Sapientiæ, v. 47.