324 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



and in so doing actually lifted him with their horns and bore him 

 a considerable distance. All wild animals usually gore a wounded 

 companion and expel it from the herd ; even zebras bite and 

 kick a diseased one. This instinct is a wise provision of nature 

 to prevent any but the perfect and healthy from propagating 

 their species. 



Among the great numbers of buffaloes Livingstone noticed 

 that nearly every animal was attended by a peculiar bird, which 

 served the double purpose of ridding them of insects and sound- 

 ing an alarm when danger threatened. Rhinoceri were also 

 plentiful, and these, too, were followed by a companion-bird, 

 which seemed attached to the huge beast out of pure affection, 

 for owing to its hard, hairless skin it is not much troubled with 

 insects. 



One species of this bird possesses a bill of a peculiar scoop or 

 stone forceps form, as if intended only to tear off insects from 

 the skin ; and its claws are as sharp as needles, enabling it to 

 hang on to an animal's ear while performing a useful service 

 within it. This sharpness of the claws allows the bird to cling 

 to the nearly insensible cuticle without irritating the nerves of 

 pain on the true skin, exactly as a burr does to the human hand. 



THE MOTHER ELEPHANT AND HER CALF. 



ONE evening, on the Zambesi, Livingstone shot an elephant, 

 and on the following day, while his men were cutting it up, great 

 numbers of the villagers came to enjoy the feast. They were on 

 the side of a fine green \i lley, studded here and there with trees 

 and cut by numerous rivulets. Livingstone had retired from the 

 noise, to take an observation among some rocks of laminated 

 grit, when he beheld an elephant and her calf at the end of the 

 valley, about two miles distant. The calf was rolling in the 

 mud, and the dam was standing fanning herself with her great 

 ears. As he looked at them through his glass, he saw a long 

 string of his own men appearing on the other side of them, 

 while one of the men came and told him that these had gone off 

 saying, "Our father will see to-day what sort of men he has 

 got." He then went higher up the side of the valley, in order 



