1128 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
proportion should be dealt with by the shooting of a ewe before each ram is killed. 
Complaints as to destruction of crops would be met by such a regulation. There 
is no doubt that such complaints were justified in some few localities before 
this last disastrous season. 
Since writing my first letter on the subject to you, I had a conversation 
with a big land-owner of Jalalpur, whose name I unfortunately cannot remember. 
He told me that the oorial in Jalalpur ruldi had not suffered much from the 
drought, as they came down to the Jhelum to drink. This rukh is peculiarly 
situated, however, and I can think of no other with such advantages. The 
reports I have had from other rukhs are most depressing. 
Stanyon’s Hotel, Quetta, 
3rd October 1922. 
C. H. STOCKLEY, D.S.O., 
Major. 
No. IX.— THE BREEDING OF ELEPHANTS IN CAPTIVITY. 
I have read with great interest Mr. Hundley’s letter of 30th August 1921, 
given in the last issue of the journal received by me. 
I have kept a record extending over a number of years and put the period of 
gestation at 22 months. An elephant may calve after 20 months, but if she 
does i t is due to over work or over marching and the calf if bom living will at 
first be weaker than a calf carried for the full period. More usually it is bom 
dead. 
My records comprise cases when I have seen the act myself and also cases 
when I know that a cow elephant has been covered by a bull within a period of 
a very few daj's. 
It is not necessary for the bull elephant to be “ musth ” to reproduce his 
kind and in fact a calf can be got by an immature, stiU growong, bull, which has 
never been on “ musth.” 
Among wild elephants a yoimg bull would be driven away by the bigger tuskers 
and also in cases where a number of tame elephants are working and grazing 
together. 
I differ from Mr. Hundley when he states that “ musth ” has little to do with 
the sexual instinct. Bull elephants on “ musth ” always become queer tempered 
at that time and many very dangerous both to men and to other elephants and 
have to be tied up and starved until “ musth ” abates. 
If a cow in season can be provided for the bull it wall tend to reduce his “ musth,” 
but he wdU drive away and even gore a cow which is not in season and will there- 
fore not allow him to cover her. 
We had a case only last April in our elephant rest camps, when a tusker — a 
dangerous man-killing beast even when sane — went musth and got loose with- 
out his hobbles. My two travelling elephants were fortunately close at hand and 
more fortimately still both in season. He covered them both repeatedly 
which so reduced his “ musth ” that our men were able to recapture him. He 
was then tied up and in spite of starvation his “ musth ” increased for some 
days and he would have nothing to do with another cow introduced to him. 
A cow elephant in season will very often have a shght discharge from the 
glands between the eye and ear, similar to the discharge from a “ musth ” bull but 
of course to a very much less extent, in fact merely a shght dampness visible 
when the skin of the elephant is dry. 
A bull going “ musth ” usually gives fair warning of his approaching condition 
by the glands of the temple swelling some days before the discharge commences 
