It is only when the animal is disturbed or alarmed
that the dung has this property; when the animal is undisturbed it has
no blistering effect. So much for the shape and habits of the
animal. When the season comes for parturition the mothers give birth
to their young in troops upon the mountains. Before dropping their
young they scatter their dung in all directions, making a kind of
circular rampart around them; for the animal has the faculty of
ejecting excrement in most extraordinary quantities.
46
Of all wild animals the most easily tamed and the gentlest is
the elephant. It can be taught a number of tricks, the drift and
meaning of which it understands; as, for instance, it can taught to
kneel in presence of the king. It is very sensitive, and possessed
of an intelligence superior to that of other animals. When the male
has had sexual union with the female, and the female has conceived,
the male has no further intercourse with her.
Some say that the elephant lives for two hundred years;
others, for one hundred and twenty; that the female lives nearly as
long as the male; that they reach their prime about the age of
sixty, and that they are sensitive to inclement weather and frost.
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