Duration of Life. 177 



the only instances that I am aware of their actually pro- 

 ducing young under such circumstances, took place in 

 Ceylon. Both parents had been for several years at- 

 tached to the stud of the Commissioner of Roads, and 

 in 1844 the female, whilst engaged in dragging a waggon, 

 gave birth to a still-born calf Some years before, an 

 elephant that had been captured by Mr. Cripps, dropped 

 a female calf, which he succeeded in rearing. As usual, 

 the little one became the pet of the keepers ; but as it 

 increased in growth, it exhibited the utmost violence 

 when thwarted ; striking out with its hind-feet, throwing 

 itself headlong on the ground, and pressing its trunk 

 against any opposing object. 



The duration of life in the elephant has been from the 

 remotest times a matter of uncertainty and speculation. 

 Aristotle says it was reputed to live from two to three 

 hundred years, ^ and modern zoologists have assigned to 

 it an age very little less; Cuvier^ allots two hundred 

 and De Blainville^ one hundred and twenty. The 

 only attempt which I know of to establish a period his- 

 torically or physiologically is that of Fleurens, who has 

 advanced an ingenious theory on the subject in his 

 treatise '■'■ De la Longevite Humaine" He assumes the 

 sum total of life in all animals to be equivalent to five 

 times the number of years requisite to perfect their 

 growth and development ; — and he adopts as evidence 

 of the period at which growth ceases, the final consoli- 

 dation of the bones with their epiphyses; which in the 



' Aristotei.es ^t' ^«?';«. 1. viii. e.g. ' Osteographie, "EIeph."p. 74. 



° Metiag. de AIiis. Nat. p. 107. 



