THE ASIATIC ELEPHANT. 169 



of elephants having two. Though a few are born at other 

 seasons, the largest number make their appearance in September, 

 October, and November. The elephant is full grown, but not 

 fully matured, at twenty-five years of age. It does not attain 

 full strength and vigour until about thirty-five years old. 



Only the male Indian elephant has tusks ; the female has 

 short tushes or downward prongs in the upper jaw, seldom more 

 than 4 in. in length. Notwithstanding the opinion of Jerdon and 

 other authorities, Mr. Sanderson is confident that elephants 

 never shed their tusks.* The skull of foetal elephants disclose 

 milk tusks, but these never make their appearance ; they are 

 absorbed, and the tusk that cuts the gum is the permanent one. 

 Nor are tusks lost by accident ever renewed. The finest pair of 

 tusks he ever saw came from the Garo Hills. They measured 

 8 ft. 9 in. in length, and weighed 1681b. Sir Victor Brooke had 

 shot an elephant in Mysore whose longest tusk measured 8 ft., 

 and weighed 90 lbs. 



Mr. Sanderson considered it as satisfactorily settled that 

 there is no such creature as a really white elej)hant, the so-called 

 albinoes of the Kings of Burmah and Siam being merely elephants 

 of a dirty cream colour, and, in some cases, merely elephants 

 with an unusual amount of the flesh-coloured blotchings on the 

 face, ears, and neck common, in some degree, to all elephants. 

 He would not advert to Mr. Barnum's so-called " white elephant " 

 further than to say that he regarded it as the commonest of 

 common elephants, not possessing a single peculiarity (compared 

 with the everyday elephants of India) to justify the statements 

 regarding his colour and special character which preceded, and 

 even followed, his arrival in England. 



Mr. Sanderson then proceeded to explain the various native 

 modes of capturing and training elephants, and gave a graphic 

 description (assisted by diagrams) of the method of capture 

 employed by himself for the Indian Government, namely, by 



* This statement is at variance with the opinion expressed by Mr. Corse, 

 who, occupying in Tipperah a similar position to Mr. Sanderson, published 

 so long ago as 1799, a valuable memoir on the Asiatic Elephant, in the 

 'Philosophical Transactions' for that year, founded on personal observations. 

 In this memoir it is stated that although a great portion of the root of the 

 milk tusk is absorbed, the remamder is shed as a dark-coloured stump. The 

 process of growth is described and figured. — Ed. 



