36 The Cannibal Habit in the Male 



the huge pachyderms not increasing beyond measure, 

 even although they are non-prolific and breed slowly. 

 He writes : " The elephant is reckoned the slowest 

 breeder of all known animals, and I have taken some 

 pains to estimate its probable rate of increase. It 

 begins breeding when thirty years of age, and goes on 

 until ninety, bringing forth six young in the interval 

 and surviving to 100 years ; if this be so, after a 

 period of 750 years there would be nearly 19,000,000 

 elephants descended from the first pair." " Again," 

 he says, " on the other hand, in some cases, as in the 

 elephant, none are destroyed by beasts of prey." How 

 then did Darwin imagine the increase of the elephant 

 was checked ? Did he suppose that " natural selection " 

 was all-potent to arrest its increase without material 

 means being employed ? Some of the young are un- 

 doubtedly destroyed by beasts of prey, notwith- 

 standing Darwin's statement to the contrary, for it has 

 often been reported by Anglo-Indians that elephant 

 babies are not infrequently swooped off by the rush of 

 a great cat, even from the presence of the protecting 

 parent. This is, of course, a rare occurrence, and is 

 of no avail in limiting the numbers of this wild 

 species. It is therefore impossible to come to any 

 other conclusion than that the young are destroyed 

 in their immaturity, and a uniform ratio survive to 

 continue the species. In the light of Paulin's discovery 

 we can understand that which Darwin acknowledged 

 was an inexplicable phenomenon of Nature. 



He once asked a gamekeeper if the fox was aware 

 of the particular den where the vixen brought forth, 

 and he replied that he did not think it was so at the 

 beginning, but that he frequently carried game and 

 other supplies to the vixen and cubs when quite young. 

 This means that the vixen does not reveal the cubs to 

 the fox until the danger period has passed. 



