'> The African Elephant 



number of shots fifty or more to kill a large old bull. 

 It is a. well-known tact, too, that whereas, in districts where 

 nature is favourable to them, elephants have sound and 

 undamaged tusks, in hilly neighbourhoods they are often 

 broken. There are various theories to account for this. 

 It is doubtless caused chiefly by the way in which they 

 tear up the roots of trees. Following herds in narrow 

 passes, I have often come upon large numbers of big 

 pieces of tusks broken off in steep and rocky places. I 

 have preserved several such pieces in my collection. 



The elephant uses his tusks with great skill in tearing 

 off the bark from trees. He chews this bark or sucks 

 out the sap and then throws it away. He chiefly attacks 

 trees of which he can detach the bark with one prod 

 of his tusk without stopping. I could often follow the 

 track of the herds for miles by the help of these marks 

 on the tree-trunks. It set me thinking of Robinson 

 Crusoe, who records the same thing. One often finds, 

 too, smaller trees which have been quite trodden down 

 or snapped in two. I fancy that the rending off of the 

 bark and the breaking of the trees helps to develop 

 the tusks, apart from the exercise obtained by the fighting 

 of the bulls amongst themselves. In some cases the 



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branches of the trees seemed to be broken off without 

 any desire for food on the part ot the animal which made 

 the onslaught. 



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The tracks of the elephants are often extraordinarily 

 deep in the " Masika " the rainy season. In the dry 

 sand of the velt during the drought one can tell 

 whether the track is a recent one or not by the foot- 



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