It is rare that elephants display any great affection for their young. Sir Emerson Tennent quotes Knox as saying that “the she’s are alike tender of any one’s young ones, as of their own.” Mr. Sanderson, in charge of the government elephants in India, contradicts this, and states that “much exclusiveness is shown by elephants in the detailed arrangements amongst themselves in a herd; and if the mothers and young ones be closely watched, it will be seen that the latter are very rarely allowed familiarities by other females, nor, indeed do they seek them. I have seen,” he says, “many cases in the Kheddahs where young elephants, after losing their mothers by death or other causes, have been refused assistance by the other females and have been buffetted as outcasts. I have only known one instance of a very gentle, motherly elephant, in captivity, allowing a motherless calf to nurse along with her young one.” The baby Bridgeport weighed at birth two hundred and forty-five pounds, and commenced nursing an hour and forty minutes later,—not with its trunk, as was supposed in the days of Buffon, but with its mouth, like all other mammals. The young elephants are nourished upon milk until they are six months old, when they eat a small quantity of tender grass; but for several months they depend principally upon milk. A single elephant is usually born at a time, though occasionally twins are seen among wild elephants. Sometimes three small elephants are observed about the mother; but they are generally of different ages, or are twins and a brother or sister two years and a half older. The new baby Bridgeport, when I first saw it, was one of the most interesting creatures possible to imagine. Its diminutive stature, just about the size of the adult pygmies, described in Chap. IV.; its short trunk and tail; its pinkish skin, and small, solemn eyes, made it the most grotesque and comical little fellow in the world. Like all young animals, it was quite playful, and its attempts at frisking about were very amusing. It would seize its mother’s tail or her trunk, or dart between her colossal legs in a veritable game of hide and seek, while she looked on with evident pride, displaying not the slightest alarm when the keeper lifted the baby in a variety of positions so that Mr. James C. Beard could sketch it. This is a peculiarity that few mothers in the lower animal kingdom have; and even the partly wild elephants seem to have perfect faith in man, trusting their young with them, and not resenting any familiarity that does not harm them. [Illustration: PLATE XIV. HEBE AND BABY BRIDGEPORT. (ASIATIC FEMALE ELEPHANT AND YOUNG.) _Page 179._]