ELEPHANTS. 63 



years to stock the entire world with its huge representatives. On the 

 data afforded by the foregoing details of the age at which these 

 animals produce young, and of their parental period, it is easy to 

 calculate that in from 740 to 750 years, 19,000,000 of elephants 

 would remain to represent a natural population. If such a contin- 

 gency awaits even a slowly increasing race such as the elephants 

 unquestionably are, the powerful nature of the adverse conditions 

 which have ousted their kith and kin from a place amongst living 

 quadrupeds, can readily be conceived. In the face of such facts, the 

 contention that the " struggle for existence," in lopping off the weak 

 and allowing the strong to survive, accomplishes in its way an actual 

 good, becomes clear. And the important biological lesson is also 

 enforced, that there is a tolerably deep meed of philosophy involved 

 in the Laureate's pertinent remark concerning the " secret meaning " 

 of the deeds of Nature, through 



finding that of fifty seeds 

 She often brings but one to bear. 



Reference has already been made to the paucity of existing 

 species of elephants, only two distinct species being included in 

 the lists of modern naturalists. These are the African elephant 

 (Loxodon [or Elephas\ Africanus] and the Indian elephant (Elcphas 

 Indicus). But the elephantine race is not without its variations and 

 digressions from the ordinary type. We discover that amongst the 

 elephants of each species "varieties" are by no means uncommon. 

 These varieties appear as the progeny of ordinary animals. Thus the 

 Sumatran elephant and that of Ceylon are regarded as constituting 

 a distinct species, one authority, Schlegel, indeed, affixing to it the 

 distinctive appellation of Elephas Sumatrensis. The balance of 

 zoological opinion, however, is in favour of the Ceylon form being 

 simply a " variety " of the Indian species ; in other words, the differ- 

 ences between these two forms are not accounted of sufficient merit 

 to elevate the former to the rank of a distinct animal unit. The 

 famous " white elephants," whose existence has given origin to the 

 proverbial expression concerning the disadvantage of unwieldy pos- 

 sessions, have a veritable existence. In Siam, as is well known, 

 these animals are regarded with the utmost reverence, and are held 

 in sacred estimation and kept in royal state by sovereign command. 

 They are to be regarded, however, merely as an albino or colourless 

 "variety" of the Indian species. Their production depends, like 

 that of albinos or white varieties of birds or other animals, on some 

 undetermined conditions affecting development. We occasionally 

 find white varieties of birds even including that paradoxical anomaly, 

 a white blackbird and albino cats are as familiar objects as are albino 

 rabbits and white mice. Darwin remarks on the fact that albinism 

 is very susceptible of transmission to offspring, and it is so even in 



