740 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



lated springs. No other single species or race of mammal 

 in East Africa shows such versatility or superiority over 

 the environmental factors which control animal distribu- 

 tion. To-day these conditions are much altered, owing to 

 the persecution of the elephants by ivory hunters and the 

 extermination of them over much of the territory. As late 

 as thirty years ago the elephants roamed unmolested In 

 East Africa, except, perhaps, in the country immediately 

 adjacent to the coast, where they were subject to occa- 

 sional onslaughts by Arab and European trading cara- 

 vans. Count Telekl's expedition, in 1887 and 1888, met with 

 extraordinary numbers of elephants under conditions which 

 to-day are quite unknown. About the southern end of 

 Lake Rudolf Teleki found elephants on open plains many 

 miles from cover, and had no difficulty whatever in approach- 

 ing them and shooting any which possessed large tusks. 

 Some years later, in the desert region at the foot of Mount 

 Marsabit, Lord Delamere found elephants living under 

 similar conditions in open country. During his hunting 

 operations there he took photographs of many elephants 

 standing or resting in the open country, and found little 

 difficulty in going up to within a few yards of them by exer- 

 cising care to keep down-wind. At the present time ele- 

 phants, although they still exist in limited numbers near 

 these localities, are never found in such open country dur- 

 ing daylight. The well-known migratory routes formerly 

 used by elephants In East Africa in going from one feeding- 

 ground to another are no longer in use, the elephants being 

 at the present time so reduced in numbers that they are 

 confined to certain patches of forest or bush, from which 

 they fear to roam. The elephants remaining in British 

 East Africa are to-day confined to the forest area on the 

 .slopes of Mount Kenia; to the Aberdare forest; the western 

 slope of the Mau Escarpment, in the Kisi country, east of 

 the Victoria Nyanza and south of the Uganda Railway; 

 the forested region of Mount Elgon, from which they wander 

 occasionally east as far as the Uasin GIshu Plateau and the 

 west shore of Lake Barlngo. From the Elgon region north- 

 ward and westward they extend rather generally over the 

 whole of Uganda and the Nile basin, but they are perma- 

 nently found in this area only in certain forest tracts; 



