— 16 
which terminate the careers of wild things once old age 
begins to affect their bodily power. 
In each place where I saw elephants in India I made 
enquiries as to their age. At Trivandrum the elephant 
said to be oldest was a male, “Julius Caesar” ; his ascertained 
minimum age was thirty, and his supposed approximate 
age fifty-five years. The big male, “Chandra Sekaren,” 
had an ascertained minimum age of twenty -five, and a 
supposed approximate age of forty years. At Alwar I saw 
an elephant believed to be seventy years old, but this the 
headman told me was a very great age for an elephant, and 
the actual record of this animal is only known for the last 
twenty-four years, his possible forty-six previous years are 
only estimated. A big male at Alwar had an ascertained 
minimum of thirty-two years, and a supposed approximate 
age of fifty -five. 
It is interesting to compare the above statements with 
somewhat similar ones collected thirty-one years ago. In 
1882, at the request of my father (the late Sir William 
Flower, K.C.B., President of the Zoological Society of 
London), the Government of Madras went into the question 
of the age of the elephants then living in their employ ; it 
was reported on April 17, 1882, that there were : — 
One elephant said 
to be aged 98 years. 
5? 
„ 95 „ 
Two elephants 
?? 
„ 91 „ 
One elephant 
5? 
„ 90 „ 
« % 
„ 89 „ 
/ J 
7 / 
.. 80 .. 
✓ * // /y // // 
Eighteen elephants said to be aged between 
70 and 80 years.* 
But in answer to further enquiries as to how the original 
age of these animals was found out, it was reported, on 
July 5, 1882, that their ages were only estimated! 
So these figures do not really prove that an elephant in 
India lives longer than say fifty years, as appears to be the 
case in European menageries. 
The ages of elephants in Madras in 1882 were “roughly 
* Actually none of these elephants appear to have been, at that date, in the posses- 
sion of the Madras Government for more than forty-three years. 
