722 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



tramping of the huge feet. As soon as the elephants entered 

 reeds or tall grass, the herons all flew up and lit on their 

 heads and backs. With their trunks the elephants could 

 readily have gotten rid of the birds, but from the oldest to 

 the youngest — perhaps a pink calf — they evidently accepted 

 the situation as a matter of course. 



Elephants, like most game, spend the major part of their 

 time eating; but unlike most game their food is of great 

 variety. They graze and browse indifferently. They are 

 fond of making inroads on the fields of the natives, devouring 

 immense quantities of beans and corn and melons, and 

 destroying far more than they devour. They are fond of 

 various fruits, some of them so small that it must be both 

 laborious and delicate work to pick them in sufficient num- 

 bers to stay the giant beasts' appetite. We have watched 

 one feeding on grass; it behaved in the usual leisurely ele- 

 phant manner, plucking a roll of grass with its trunk, per- 

 haps waving it about, and then tucking it away into its 

 mouth. In the stomach of another we found bark, leaves, 

 abutilon tips, and the flowers and twig ends of a big shrub 

 or bush Dombeya nairobiensis . They wreck the small trees 

 on which they feed, butting or rather pressing them down 

 with their foreheads, or getting on their knees and uproot- 

 ing them with their tusks. They are fond of feeding on the 

 acacias, although it is hard to see how they avoid wounding 

 both their trunks and their tongues and jaws with the 

 thorns. We have watched one break off^ an acacia branch, 

 thrust it into its mouth, and withdraw it with the leaves 

 stripped off. Many of the branches it will chew to get the 

 sap, and then spit out; these chewed branches or canes, to- 

 gether with the wrecked trees, mark plainly the road a herd 



