Natural Hi/lory of the Elephant. tSj 



the proportion of growth for every year ; and there was no opportunity of tracing the growth ] 

 of this elephant further than its 7th year. 



Another elephant, fix feet nine inches high, at the time flie came into my pofTeflion, was 

 fuppofed to be fourteen y?ars old ; but, as the accuracy of the hunters cannot be depended on, 

 it will be proper to take Mr. Harris's elephant, whofe age is exailly known, as a ftandard : and, 

 judging from its annual increafe, this will lead us to confider the elephant, at the time I re- 

 ceived her, to be only eleven years old 5 giving a period of four years, for the addition of five 

 inches. I have made a greater allowance of time, on account of this elephant being a female, 

 and Mr. Harris's a male, which there is much reafon to believe grows fafter. 



During the next five years, before fhe was covered, fhe grew only fix inches; but, what is ex- 

 tremely curious, while pregnant, {he grew, in twenty-one months, five inches: and in the fol- 

 lowing feventeen months, though again pregnant, fhe grew only half an inch ; at which time, 

 fhe was fent from Comillah, as I was then preparing to leave India. 



At this time, (he was about nineteen years old, and had, perhaps, attained her full growth. 

 Her young one was then (Nov. 1796) not twenty months old ; yet he was four feet five inches 

 and a half high, having grown eighteen inches fince his birth, which is the greateft progreflive 

 growth, in the elephant, that I have known. 



Thefe obfervations, when applied to the general growth of elephants, are to be taken with 

 fome allowance ; fince, during the ftate of the firft pregnancy, there is fo great an irregularity 

 in the growth of female elephants, as alone occafions confiderable difficulty, even fuppofing the 

 progreffive growth nearly equal in the fpecies. It is probable, however, that this is not by any 

 means equal : for, as the elephants vary greatly in fize, and as males are generally much taller 

 than females, we muft conclude they either grow fafter, or are longer in attaining their full 

 growth *. But it may be fafely aflerted, that elephants, like moft quadrupeds, propagate their 

 fpecies before they have acquired their full growth. Many females have been known, when 

 taken while pregnant, to have grown feveral inches higher before delivery; and, as it has been 

 ftatcd, that the female elephant on which my obfervations were made, could not exceed fjxteen 

 years when fhe received the male, it is probable the wild female elephants are in heat before that 

 period. 



If, from the above data, it may be allowed to form a probable conjedture, elephants attain 

 their full fize between eighteen and tvrcnty-four years of age. The height of the elephant, I 

 believe, has been generally much exaggerated. In India, the height of females is, in ge- 

 neral, from feven to eight feet ; and that of males, from eight to ten feet, meafured at tlie 

 Ihoulder. 



I have never heard but of one elephant, on good authority, that much exceeded ten feet J 

 this was a male, belonging to Afoph ul Dowlah, the late vizier of Oude. His dimenfions, as 

 obligingly communicated to me by Mr. Cherry, then relvdent at Lucknow, were as follow. 



* A male elephant, belonging to the Cudwah Rajah, till he Was above twenty years of age, continued to in- 

 creafe in height, and was fuppofed not to have attained his full fize, when I left Tiperah : he was then anove 

 twenty-two years old. 



Bb2 He 



