Note 66 — Chapter II · HABITS WHEN WILD.
Reading edition
So little is the elephant inclined to lie down in captivity, and even after hard labour, that the keepers are generally disposed to suspect illness when he betakes himself to this posture. Phile, in his poem De Animalium Proprietate, attributes the propensity of the elephant to sleep on his legs, to the difficulty he experiences in rising to his feet:
Ὀρθοστάδην δὲ καὶ καθεύδει παννύχως Ὅτ’ οὺκ ἀναστῆσαι μὲν εὐχερῶς πέλει.
But this is a misapprehension.