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CHAPTER IV. 



GREGARIOUS HABITS OF THE ELEPHANT LARGE HERDS HAUNTS 



HABITS IMITATIVE FACULTIES A SQUADRON OF ELEPHANTS 



FOOD ON WHICH THEY SUBSIST TREES UPROOTED BY ELE- 

 PHANTS NOT A RUMINATING ANIMAL QUANTITY OF WATER 

 DRUNK BY THE ELEPHANT THROWING WATER OVER THE BODY 



PROTECTION FROM THE SUN. 



elephant is gregarious. " Like the beaver," 

 says Buffon, " it loves the society of its 

 species. Elephants understand each other, assemble, 

 disperse, and act in concert." 



Ordinarily the herd consists of females, with their 

 calves, and young males ; but the former are much 

 more numerous than the latter, probably, in the 

 proportion of twenty to one. It is a remarkable 

 fact that, neither in my own experience nor in that 

 of the elephant-hunters of my acquaintance, have 

 full-grown males (excepting in very rare instances) 

 been met with in company with the cows. On only 

 a single occasion, and that out of a herd of perhaps 

 little less than three hundred females, Mr. Oswald 

 informs me, does he recollect having met with a 

 mature male in their society, and the individual in 

 question, singularly enough, had not even the rudi- 

 ments of tusks. The old bulls keep to themselves, 



