ELEPHANT HUNTING 239 



wisest and the rhinoceros one of the stupidest of big mam- 

 mals. In consequence the elephant outlasts the rhino, al- 

 though he is the largest, carries infinitely more valuable 

 spoils, and is far more eagerly and persistently hunted. 

 Both animals wandered freely over the open country of East 

 Africa thirty years ago. But the elephant learns by ex- 

 perience infinitely more readily than the rhinoceros. As a 

 rule, the former no longer lives in the open plains, and in 

 many places now even crosses them if possible only at night. 

 But those rhinoceros which formerly dwelt in the plains for 

 the most part continued to dwell there until killed out. So 

 it is at the present day. Not the most foolish elephant would 

 under similar conditions behave as the rhinos that we studied 

 and hunted by Kilimakiu and in the Sotik behaved. No 

 elephant, in regions where they have been much persecuted 

 by hunters, would habitually spend its days lying or standing 

 in the open plain; nor would it, in such places, repeatedly, 

 and in fact uniformly, permit men to walk boldly up to it 

 without heeding them until in its immediate neighborhood. 

 The elephant's sight is bad, as is that of the rhinoceros; 

 but a comparatively brief experience with rifle-bearing man 

 usually makes the former take refuge in regions where 

 scent and hearing count for more than sight; while no ex- 

 perience has any such effect on the rhino. The rhinos that 

 now live in the bush are the descendants of those which 

 always lived in the bush; and it is in the bush that the 

 species will linger long after it has vanished from the open; 

 and it is in the bush that it is most formidable. 



Elephant and rhino differ as much in their habits as in 

 their intelligence. The former is very gregarious, herds of 

 several hundred being sometimes found, and is of a restless, 



