Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-08-21

The interest which attaches to the mod
ern representatives of the mammoth host
Is by no means limited to the zoolosical
world, but extends throughout all classes
of society, who ind something TO wonder
at even in the huge proportions and IN
calmly ways of the elephant family. A
remarkably limited family circle is that
which includes the elephants as its typioal
representatives.. The past history of the
race, ike that OF rot few other groups of
animals and plants, is exactly the converse
OF Its pEesent.day phases, as regards nu-
merical strength at least. As the existing
pearly nautilus is the cole survivor of the
Immense hordes of four-gilled and shelled
cutie fishes which swarned In the primi-
tive seas and oceans of our earth, or as the
few living lampshells," or Brachiopods,
represent IN themselves the fulness Of life
that crowded the Silurian seas, so the two
existing species of elephants with which we
are familiar to-day stand forth aEaoug
quadfupeds as the representatives of a
comparatively plentiful past population of
these mammalian giants. The causes
which have depopulated the earth Of it's
elephantine tenants may be alluded to here
after; but it is evident that neither size
nor strength avails against the operation of
those physical environments which so pow.
ertully affect the ways and destinies of man
and monad alike. One highly important
feature OF elephant organization may, how
ever, he noted tyen in these preliminary
details respecting the modern scarcity Of
elephantlne species, namely, that the
slow increase Of the race, and, as
compared with other animals, at
least, the resulting paucity of num-
be,s, must have had their own share as
conditions affecting the exiiatenr, sf tnese
huge animals. The elephants are, of all
known animals, the slowest to increase in
numbers. At the earliest, the female ele-
plant does not become parent until the
age of thirty years, and only six young are
capable of being produced during the
parental period, which appears to cease at
ninety years of age; the average duration
of elephant.life being presumed to be about
a hundred years. Bat it is most interest
Ing as well as important, in view of any
speculation OF the increase of species and
on the question of competition among the
races of animal life, to reflect that, given
favorable conditions Of existence, such as a
sufficiency Of food, freedom from disease
and from the attack of enemies, and the
elephant race, slow of increase as it is,
would come in few thousand years to
stock the entire world with its huge repre-
sentatives. On the data afforded by the
foregoing details of the age at which these
animals produce young, and of their pa.
rental period, it is easy to calculate that in
from seven hundred and forty to seven
hundred and fifty years, ninsteen million
elephants would remain TO represent nat
ural population. If such contingency
awaits even slowly increasing race such
as the elephants unquestionably are, the
powerful nature of the adverse conditions
which have onsted their kith and kin from
a place among living quadrupeds can read
lily be conceived. -[Dr. Andrew Wilson.