254 "T"^ GAME OF BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



Young Elephants. — On the birth of a new calf the mother does not drive away the old calf 

 as do most other animals. I have never seen a female rhino with more than one calf following it. 

 With elephants, however, two and even three calves of different sizes may be seen following 

 one female. When three calves of different sizes follow one female, the largest must be at least 

 four years of age to allow for the subsequent births of the two others. I have often observed 

 three animals follow the movements of one old cow, but on most occasions the biggest of the 

 three calves was a female ; possibly females remain longer with the mother than do males. 

 When a cow is killed, the calves, unlike the rhino calf, remain only a short time with the 

 body of their mother, they then leave to rejoin the herd. One small calf by itself would probably 

 remain, like the rhino calf, for a day if not disturbed, but being accompanied by older calves it 

 would naturally follow their movements and leave when they did. 



Elephants Fighting Inter Se. — It is generally considered that elephants are very amiable 

 and good-natured. I have not noticed in the works of any writer any description of the fierce 

 conflicts which must occur between the bulls. Old bulls are always covered with scars, recent 

 and old wounds dealt by the tusks of others. Ears are torn and holes punched through them. 

 I found in one elephant, on the tusks being cut out, the broken tip of another elephant's tusk 

 deeply embedded in the gums. 



Broken-tusked and One-tusked Elephants. — Elephants with the tip broken off a tusk are 

 commonly met with. This may be causea by fighting, as in the case I have just mentioned, or by 

 various other causes. The broken end of a tusk was brought in recently by natives, who 

 averred that they found it sticking in a tree. 



One-tusked elephants have, I am of opinion, often lost a tusk from an old wound in the 

 nerve at the base of the tusk. Such a wound is generally caused by a native missile 

 passing through the thin ivory at the base of the tusk, and lodging in the nerve. The nerve 

 decays and the tusk splits at the place which the missile enters. The tusk decays and, gradually 

 becoming brittle, breaks and crumbles away. I have seen elephants with just the stump of a 

 decayed tusk, and I have seen elephants with no sign showing of the presence even of a 

 stump, spongy bone alone occupying the space which should form the tusk socket. 



Elephants Charging Trees. — I was told by a resident in East Africa that an elephant charged 

 a tree behind which he was standing and completely smashed up one tusk against it. The pieces 

 were picked up and fitted together, forming the complete fore-part of a tusk that weighed 

 about 2olb. 



A native who was brought to me on a litter to have wounds dressed stated that some 

 elephants came into his fields, and he climbed up a tree and from there shot an arrow at one of 

 them. It immediately charged the tree in which he was perched and knocked it down. A tree 

 of about a foot in diameter was pointed out as being of similar girth to the one in question. 



I have been told by a brother officer of an instance in which an elephant he wounded in the 

 head fell down and then rose again and charged the nearest tree, which happened to be a very 

 big one, and so half stunned itself. 



A wounded elephant will sometimes rush, trumpeting, at a tree, and tear off a branch or beat 

 with its trunk the branches above its head. 



I was told of a case in which a wounded elephant, on being followed up, was found to have 

 torn up almost every tree it had passed by. 



Elephants Charging. — Elephants seem onlytocharge for comparatively short distances. When 

 stampeding and seen at close quarters they have the appearance of charging, but they keep straight 



