558 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 17 10. 



26 or 28 years old ; and yet she seems to have been young, according to their 

 term of hfe, for the epiphyses separated from the bones by boiling, as easily as 

 those of the human subject would have done at the age of 10 or 12. And yet 

 it is an animal subject to many distempers; so that though they may live to 

 some of the fore- mentioned ages, yet mostly they die before they come to such 

 a length. 



It is an animal of considerable size; but whether ever so large as to contain 

 32 strong men upon its back, as is related, Maccab. ch. vi. v. 37, besides the 

 Indian that governed it, is much to be doubted; and it is more probable that 

 this is an error in the impression. Indeed Philostratus speaks of 10 or 15 

 Indians fighting with darts in castles on elephants' backs: and Paulus Vineta 

 says, that in the Ginger islands they have wooden castles on elephants' backs, 

 which can contain 15 or 20 men. But I rather believe what Heliodorus says, 

 that the towers on the elephants' backs could contain 6 fighting men, who from 

 each side threw darts, the hinder part remaining void; or Cadamustus, that 

 they put towers upon the back, which can hold 3 or 4 men that fight upon 

 them; and ^lianus, that they carry 3 warriors fighting from either side, and 

 the 4th which governs them. Which last 3 accounts seem very well to agree 

 with the usual height ascribed to them: about which some authors, talking 

 more largely, tell us of 1 6 or 18 feet high; but the most received account is, 

 that they are from 8 to 13 feet high. 



As to their manner of procreation, all authors agree that it is an animal of 



extraordinary modesty, and therefore never copulates in view of any one. As 



to the posture, some assert that it is retrocoient and retromingent ; among 



whom is Dr. Moulins, from an observation he has made of the situation and 



structure of the penis. Others observing the distance between the anus and 



vagina, and that the dugs are situated between the fore limbs, are of opinion, 



that the female is in a supine, and the male in a prone posture: among whom 



is Tavernler, who tells us that the female gathers a great deal of herbs and 



weeds, and makes her a bed 4 or 5 feet high from the ground, where she 



throws herself, and lies on her back in expectation of the male, whom she 



invites by a peculiar cry; and that may be the reason why the dugs are placed so 



forward, to avoid the pressure. A third opinion is, that the female descends 



into a ditch, and that the coitus is not different from that of other quadrupeds. 



As to the first, I can scarcely believe it probable, because there can be no such 



thing as a retrocoient animal ; for that would quite invert the order of nature, 



and give a far different motion to the muscles of the thighs, than they can be 



supposed to have from their situation. As to the second opinion, were it not 



for Tavernier's assertion, I should think it too unwieldy an animal, and too 



