The Institutes of Akbar 82.1.6

82.1.6

According to others, the sperm gets solid in the first month; the eyes, ears, the nose, mouth, and tongue, are formed in the second; in the third month, the limbs make their appearance; in the fourth month, the fœtus grows and gets strong; in the fifth, it commences to quicken; in the sixth, it gets sense, which appears more marked during the seventh month; in the eighth, there is some chance of a miscarriage; during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh months, the fœtus grows, and is born during the twelfth. It will be a male young one, if the greater part of the sperm came from the male; and it will be a female young one, if the reverse is the case. If the sperm of both the male and female is equal in quantity, the young one will be a hermaphrodite. The male fœtus lies towards the right side; the female towards the left; a hermaphrodite in the middle. Female elephants have often for twelve days a red discharge, after which gestation commences. During that period, they look startled, sprinkle themselves with water and earth, keep ears and tail upwards, and go rarely away from the male. They will rub themselves against the male, bend their heads below his tusks, smell at his urine and dung, and cannot bear to see another female near him. Sometimes, however, a female shews aversion to intercourse with the male, and must be forced to copulate, when other female elephants, at hearing her noise, will come to her rescue.