The animal lives for a long period, more than fifty years.
It bears in spring-time, and gives milk until the time of the next
conception. Its flesh and milk are exceptionally palatable. The milk
is drunk mixed with water in the proportion of either two to one or
three to one.
27
The elephant of either sex is fitted for breeding before
reaching the age of twenty. The female carries her young, according to
some accounts, for two and a half years; according to others, for
three years; and the discrepancy in the assigned periods is due to the
fact that there are never human eyewitnesses to the commerce between
the sexes. The female settles down on its rear to cast its young,
and obviously suffers greatly during the process. The young one,
immediately after birth, sucks the mother, not with its trunk but with
the mouth; and can walk about and see distinctly the moment it is
born.
28
The wild sow submits to the boar at the beginning of winter, and
in the spring-time retreats for parturition to a lair in some district
inaccessible to intrusion, hemmed in with sheer cliffs and chasms
and overshadowed by trees.
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