San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-09-14
Increase Among Elephants.

The interest which attaches. to the
modern representatives OF the NAM
moth host is by no means limited TO
the geological world. but extends
throughout all classes of society, who
find something to wonder at even IN
the huge proportions and ungainly ways
of the elephant family. A remarkable
limited family circle is that which H.
cludes the elephant as it's typical rep
resentative. The past history Of the
race, like that OF not few other groups
of animals and plants, is exactly the
converse of its present-day phase as re-
CARDS numerical strength, at least. AS
the existing pearly nautilus is the sole
survivor of the immense hordes OF
four-g illed and shelled cutie fishes
that swarmed in the primitive seas and
oceans of our earth, or, as the few lv-
ing "lampshells," or Brachiopods, rep
resent in themselves the fullness of
life that crowded the Silurian seas, so
the two existing species of elephants
with which we are 4amiliar to-day stand
forth among qusdrupeds as the repre-
sentatives of o comparatively plentiful
past population of these mammalian
giants. The causes which have de-
populated the earth of its elephantine
tenants may be alluded to hereafter,
but it is evident that neither size nor
strength avails against the operation OF
those physical environments which SO
powerfully affect the ways and destinies
of man and nomad alike. One highly
important feature ofelephant organiza-
ton may, however, be noted even in
in these preliminary details respecting
the modern scarcity of elephatine spe-
cies-namely, that the slow increase Of
the race, and, as compared with other
animals, at least; the resulting pauci-
tv of numbers must have had their own
share as conditions affecting the exist
ence of these huge animals. The ele-
phants are, of all known animals, the
slowest to increase in numbers. At the
earliest, the female elephant does not
become parent until the age of thirty
years, and only six young are capable
CT 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 hundred years; but it is most
interesting, as we'll as important, in
view of any speculation on the increase
of species and on the question of COM
petition among the races of animal life,
to reflect that, given favorable condi-
tions of existence-such as sufficiency
flood, freedom from disease and 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 it's huge repre-
sentatives. On the data afforded by
the foregoing details of the age at which
these animals produce young and Of
their parental period it is easy to cal
culate that in from seven hundred and
forty to seven hundred and fifty years
nineteen million elephants would re-
main to represent natural population.
If such contingency awaits even a
mountaineering race, such as the ele-
plants unquestionably are, the power
full nature of the adverse conditions
which have oustcd their kith and kin
from place among living quadrupeds
can readily be conceived.-DR. AN
DREW WILSON. I'M "Popatlar Science
Monthly."