DURATION OF YOUTH IN MAMMALS 43 



wiped, a process he much disUked. He usually slept on a bath 

 towel alongside my pillow, but on several occasions, for various 

 reasons, he slept under different conditions, sometimes for a few 

 days at a time, once for more than a month. On coming back he 

 at once went to his old place without any hesitation. It is the instinct 

 of a cat to pounce on any moving object, and he had some difficulty 

 in learning that a knee or a foot moving under the bedclothes 

 was not legitimate prey. But he learned this, and he never had to 

 be taught not to lay hold of the face or hands. If it were cold at 

 night and he wished to be taken under the blankets, or if he wished 

 to leave the room, he would arouse me by stroking my face with his 

 paws. I believe it is the experience of every one who has been at 

 the pains to make friends with any of the wild Carnivora that they 

 show as much intelligence as the domesticated forms. There is 

 no parallel between size and intelligence among Carnivora ; the 

 sizes to which the different species attain seem to be associated 

 with their habits of life rather than with their place in the scale. 

 Youth lasts longest in some of the larger forms ; in all of them 

 it is shorter in proportion to size than in man and his alhes, and in 

 most of them it is absolutely shorter than in most of the near 

 relations of man. If the two groups be compared with regard to 

 size, the difference is very striking ; the largest carnivores, such 

 as bears, lions and tigers, are much larger, more bulky and more 

 powerful animals than gorillas and chimpanzees, but reach maturity 

 much more quickly. 



The vegetarian terrestrial mammals belong to distinct groups 

 which are not at all closely related and which must be considered 

 separately. 



Elephants are the largest and heaviest of existing land animals. 

 The African elephant reaches a greater size and bulk than the 

 Indian species ; the tallest wild specimen whose height has been 

 recorded was shot in Abyssinia and stood 11 feet 8|- inches at the 

 shoulder ; Jumbo, the largest African elephant that has been in 

 captivity, was 11 feet high when he left the London Zoological 

 Gardens, and is stated to have reached 12 feet before he died in 

 America. An Indian elephant 10 feet 6 inches in height is unusually 

 large. A moderately sized elephant, of about 7 feet high, weighs 

 from 2 to 3 tons, and a really fine example between 5 and 6 tons, 

 Jumbo having weighed 6^ tons. Elephants grow slowly ; the dura- 

 tion of their youth is from twenty to twenty -four years, a very much 

 longer time than that occupied by the youth of any other terrestrial 



