Note 77 — Chapter II · HABITS WHEN WILD.
Reading edition
This peculiarity was known in the middle ages, and Phile, writing in the fourteenth century, says, that such is his preference for muddy water that the elephant stirs it before he drinks.
Ὕδωρ δὲ πίνει συγχυθὲν πρὶν ἂν πίνοι, Τὸ γὰρ διειδὲς ἀκριβῶς διαπτύει. Phile de Eleph. i. 144.