PEEPRHANT FRIENDS: AND FOES '\) 3% 
As a consequence an elephant may sink four feet into 
a swamp but the minute he begins to lift his legs, his 
feet will contract and come out of the hole they have 
made without suction. The elephant’s leg, being 
practically a perpendicular shaft, requires less mus- 
cular effort for him to stand than it does for ordinary 
animals. This is one of the reasons why he can go 
for a century without lying down. 
A country that elephants have long inhabited takes 
on some of the particular interest of the animals them~ 
selves. I believe that before the white man came to 
East Africa the elephant was nearly as much a plains 
animal as a forest animal, but he now tends to stay 
in the forests where the risk is not so great. On 
the plains there are no elephant paths now, if there 
ever were, for in open country elephants do not go 
in single file. But in the forests there are elephant 
paths everywhere. In fact, if it were not for the ele- 
phant paths travel in the forest would be almost im- 
possible, and above the forests in the bamboo country 
this is equally true. One travels practically all the 
time on their trails and they go everywhere except 
in the tree ferns. Tree fern patches are not very 
extensive, but I have never seen an elephant track or 
an elephant in them. The elephants are constantly 
changing the paths for various reasons; among others, 
because the natives are in the habit of digging ele- 
phant pits in the trails. But there are some trails 
that have evidently been used for centuries. One 
time we had followed a band of elephants on the 
Aberdare Plateau and had devilled them until they 
