ELEPHANTS. 195 



larger meaning to the numbers of tlic Elephants than is really intended. Jlr. Blyth disallows Mr. 

 Darwin's calculation of tlio probable minimum rate of tlio nafui'al increase of the Elephant, by 

 which he reckoned that in five centuries the increase of a single pair woidd exceed lo,00n,()ll() ; 

 but it was not necessary for his argument to take this objection, because it is all at the end of 

 the centuries that the rapidity of the increase takes place ; at the 120th year, according to Darwin's 

 datum of three pair of births in each Elephant's lifetime, the increase of one pair would not have 

 reached 500 individuals ; or, supposing three pairs of Elephants to have been turned loose, the in- 

 crease would not have reached 1500, but another thirty years or two make a great difference, the 

 increase then goes on with giant strides ; Mr. Darwin's rate of increase also is probably much too 

 low ; supposing the female to produce one calf onlj' at a time (and she has sometimes two), his rate 

 would give only one birth in fifteen years. It would not seem too much to double this, in which 

 case at 120 years after the introduction of three pair they might bo 20,000 in nuniber, or if we take 

 150 years then 60,000, a sufficient number to make some very respectable herds even after making- 

 allowance for the patriarchs dying off. 



Another objection of Mr. Blyth's to the common account is that the remnant of a wild 

 race of Elef)hants existed in Sulu within the memory of jjeojile now Hving.* That a remnant of 

 Elephants existed there may be true, but there is no evidence that they were a irilil race. The 

 following information on the subject is given by Mr. St. John, in his notice of Sidu : — "Remem- 

 bering Forest's statement that Elephants were found in his time in the forests which clothed so 

 much of the soil of the island, I asked Dater Daniel about it ; his answer was, that even within 

 the remembrance of the oldest men then alive, there were still a few Elephants left in the woods, 

 but finding that they committed so much damage to the plantations the villagers had combined and 

 hunted the beasts until they were all killed ; I was pleased to find the old traveller's account 

 confirmed." t 



Mr. Blyth asks why since there were wild Elejihants already on the island, should the few 

 tame Elej)hants presented to the Sultan of Sulu be landed in Borneo. I would answer his inquiry 

 (Scot ice) by another. Why should they have ever been presented to him at all if the Elephant was 

 already a native of his o^vn island ? The more natural supposition seems to be that he did not 

 dismiss the present of Elephants to Borneo befoi'e he had seen them and tried them. Until he had 

 done so, he could scarcely estimate the extent of their appetite, and that it was only after he found 

 it too large for his revenue that he despatched them to Borneo, and that even then he did not 

 send all. It is in accordance with human nature that he should keep one or two as a toj' to show. 

 These may very probably have been the progenitors of the Elephants destroyed by the ^-illagers, 

 while those now wild in Borneo are the representatives of the greater number turned loose there. 



The probability of the Bornean terrestrial fauna ha\'ing been at one time entirely arboreal, 

 does not therefore thus far appear to be afiectcd by any of the instances of non-arboreal animals said 

 to occur there. 



The Elephant is not iiow met with in any of the other islands in the Indian Archipelago except 

 Java and Sumatra. It is aboriginal in the latter, but not in the former. In former times, however, 

 it must have been an inhabitant of the Philippine Islands, as the names Gadya (Elephant) and 

 Nangagadya (Elephant-hunting), are preserved in the Tagal language.^ 



* Blyth in '■ Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal," 1SC2. J Bowring, Sir John, '■' A Visit to the Philippine 



t St. John, op. eit. ii. 243. ' Islands," 1,S.59. 



