ELEPHANTS 719 



bushbuck In the forests, the hartebeests on the plains, the 

 oryx in dry, almost desert country. But the elephant wan- 

 ders everywhere, being equally at home in the haunts of 

 bushbuck, oryx, and hartebeest. It goes high among the 

 cold bamboo belts of the mountains; it loves the hot, dense, 

 swampy lowland forests; it lives in the barren desert where 

 it has to travel a score of miles for a drink of bitter water. 

 Sometimes herds make long migrations, swarming for sev- 

 eral months in a locality, while during the rest of the year 

 not an elephant will be found within a hundred miles of it. 

 Elsewhere they may live in the same neighborhood all the 

 year round. On the south slope of Mount Kenia we found 

 the elephants living in the daytime in the thick forest, but 

 at night often wandering down into the plain to ravage the 

 shambas, the cultivated fields near the native villages. In 

 the Lado we found herds of elephants living day and night 

 in the same places, in the dry, open plains of tallish grass 

 sprinkled with acacias and a few palms. The old bulls 

 usually keep by themselves, alone or in small parties; herds 

 exclusively composed of cows and calves are common; but 

 often both sexes mingle in a herd, and some of the largest 

 tuskers are always accompanied by herds of cows, which 

 seem to take a pride in them and watch over and protect 

 them. 



The wide individual and local variation in habits should 

 make the observer very cautious about making sweeping 

 generalizations; and, moreover, there is often an undoubted 

 difference of personal equation in the observer. In Sander- 

 son's capital book "The Wild Beasts of India" he states 

 that elephant cows do not leave the herd to calve and that 

 both bulls and cows habitually lie down. In the parts of 



