726 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



ing to stalk through the burned places so as to catch grass- 

 hoppers. The herd stationed itself for the day among the 

 thorn-trees on one of the small rises of ground, the herons 

 advertising the place by perching in a snowy mass on the 

 acacias. In mid-afternoon the elephants again strolled 

 forth to feed. They went to water, and were feeding when 

 night fell. They spent most of the following day in the 

 neighborhood. During all this time they were within a 

 couple of miles of camp, and as we watched them close by 

 we could distinctly hear an occasional camp noise, and the 

 report of the shot-guns of the ornithologists of the expedi- 

 tion. Yet the elephants were totally unconcerned. 



In regions where the natives are timid and unarmed the 

 elephants sometimes become not merely familiar but dan- 

 gerous. They are always fond of ravaging fields and gar- 

 dens, and when they find that they can do this with impu- 

 nity they are apt to become truculent toward mankind. 

 In Uganda we more than once came across deserted villages, 

 already far on the way again to becoming parts of the 

 jungle, which we found had been abandoned by the inhabit- 

 ants because of the ravages of elephants. At one camp 

 the chief of a neighboring village called on us to ask us 

 to kill a rogue bull, the leader of a small herd of elephants 

 which were in its immediate vicinity. He said that the ele- 

 phants were very bold, were not afraid of men, and that the 

 bull had grown so vicious that he attacked every man he 

 came across. Colonel Roosevelt and Kermit went after the 

 rogue. They found the herd so close to the camp that they 

 could hear the porters talking and the sound of the axes, 

 and were charged by the bull as soon as he made them out, 

 at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. They killed him. 



