Exact information in regard to the period of gestation of the female is still lacking, the length of the period being given from eighteen to twenty-two months by different authorities. The native idea, which may be true, is that the shorter period occurs in the case of female and the longer in that of male calves. In India elephants seldom breed in captivity, though they do so more frequently in Burma and Siam; the domesticated stock is therefore replenished by fresh captures. Occasionally two calves are produced at a birth, although the normal number is one. Calves suckle with their mouths and not with their trunks. Unlike the African species, the Indian elephant charges with its trunk curled up, and consequently in silence. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--Immature African Elephant (_Elephas africanus_).] As regards their present distribution in India, elephants are found along the foot of the Himalaya as far west as the valley of Dehra-Dun, where the winter temperature falls to a comparatively low point. A favourite haunt used to be the swamp of Azufghur, lying among the sal-forests to the northward of Meerut. In the great tract of forest between the Ganges and Kistna rivers they occur locally as far west as Bilaspur and Mandla; they are met with in the Western Ghats as far north as between latitude 17° and 18°, and are likewise found in the hill-forests of Mysore, as well as still farther south. In this part of the peninsula they ascend the hills to a considerable height, as they do in the Newara Eliya district of Ceylon, where they have been encountered at an elevation of over 7000 ft. There is evidence that about three centuries ago elephants wandered in the forests of Malwa and Nimar, while they survived to a later date in the Chanda district of the Central Provinces. At the comparatively remote epoch when the Deccan was a forest tract, they were probably also met with there, but the swamps of the Bengal Sundarbans appear unsuited to their habits. Of tusks, the three longest specimens on record respectively measure 8 ft. 9 in., 8 ft. 2 in. and 8 ft.; their respective weights being 81, 80 and 90 lb. These are, however, by no means the heaviest--one, whose length is 7 ft. 3-3/8 in., weighing 102 lb.; while a second, of which the length is 7 ft. 3¼ in., scaled 97½ lb. Of the largest pair in the possession of the British Museum, which belonged to an elephant killed in 1866 by Colonel G.M. Payne in Madras, one tusk measures 6 ft. 8 in. in length, and weighs 77¾ lb., the other being somewhat smaller. It should be added that some of these large tusks came from Ceylon; such tuskers being believed to be descended from mainland animals imported into the island. "White" elephants are partial or complete albinos, and are far from uncommon in Burma and Siam. Young Indian elephants are hairy, thus showing affinity with the mammoth.