35 
Natural History of the Elephant. 
If, from the above data, it may be allowed to form a probable 
conjecture, elephants attain their full size between eighteen and 
twenty-four years of age. The height of the elephant, I believe, 
has been generally much exaggerated. In India, the height of 
females is, in general, from seven to eight feet ; and that of 
males, from eight to ten feet, measured at the shoulder. 
I have never heard but of one elephant, on good authority, 
that much exceeded ten feet: this was a male, belonging to 
Asoph ul Dowlah, the late vizier of Oude. His dimensions, 
as obligingly communicated to me by Mr. Cherry, then Resi- 
dent at Lucknow, were as follow. 
He was measured on the 18th of June, 1796. 
Feet. Inches. 
From foot to foot, over the shoulder - - 22 10^ 
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height 10 6 
From the top of the head, when set up, as he ought 
to march in state - - 12 2 
From the front of the face to the insertion of the 
tail - - - - 15 11 
Capt. Sandys, of the Bengal establishment, obligingly shew- 
ed me a list of about 150 elephants, of which he had the ma- 
nagement during the late war with Tippoo Sultaun, in Mysore, 
and not one of them was ten feet, and only a few males nine 
feet and a half high. I was very particular in ascertaining the 
height of the elephants employed at Madras, and with the army 
under Marquis Cornwallis, where there were both Ceylon 
and Bengal elephants ; and I have been assured, that those of 
Ceylon were neither higher, nor superior, in any respect, to those 
of Bengal ; and some officers assert, that they were considera- 
bly inferior, in point of utility. 
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