With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



with his tusks. Once an old bull ripjjcd a hunter to pieces 

 by putting its toot on the man's head, and slashing his body 

 with its tusk as if it had been using a knife. There are many 

 similar stories told ot fatalities with elephants; one of the 

 saddest was the death of Prince Rusjxili in Somaliland. 

 When flight is necessary, it is best made sideways ; 

 for the elephant makes his attack, as a rule, straight in 

 front of him. This is all the more to be recommended 

 because it is by an extraordinaril\- developed sense of 

 smell that the elephant finds his way, and not by his weak 

 eyes. His hearing also is excellent. Observers who 

 doubt this fact do not know that in most cases the elephant 

 is aware of the approach of an enemy solely by his sense 

 of smell long before his hearing can come into activity ; 

 also that elephants are so accustomed to the noise of the 

 snapping of branches, when they are in the herd, that they 

 would not notice the sounds made by a hunter. Solitarv 

 elephants, however, are agitated by the slightest suspicious 

 rustle. From some vantage-point I have often watched 

 these animals in the valley beneath, and have had 

 excellent opportunities of noticing how, with the help of 

 their trunks lifted high over their heads, they were able 

 to recognise the ever-changing breezes ot the hillside, 

 and to watch over their own satety and that ot the herd. 

 Personally 1 am (|uite convincc;d that either the 

 animals have a sense unknown to us, or that, l)y a (juite 

 unsuspected highly de\eloped acuteness ot" known senses, 

 they are able to understand one another to some t;xtent. 

 Moreover, the)' have; a much keeiu-r and surer susc(;pti- 

 bility to sound than m,m. 



15S 



