284 After Big Game in Central Africa 



by two and sometimes by three calves of different ages. . . . 

 The tusks of the young elephant are visible almost from 

 birth. ... A calf usually stands exactly 3 feet high at 

 the shoulder when born. Its weight is about 200 Ibs. on 

 the second day after birth." 



I have often seen females with their young, and noticed 

 that the young follow their mothers with the greatest ease on 

 long marches. Upon the approach of the slightest danger, 

 the young immediately take refuge between their mothers' 

 legs, generally under the chest, where, as we know, the 

 udders are situated. To suck, they throw their trunks 

 aside and use their lips, though the natives are persuaded 

 that they suck with " their noses," just as Buffon believed. 

 They use the trunks for drinking. The mother is full of 

 solicitude for her offspring : she supports her young, as I 

 have already narrated, when crossing a river ; she also helps 

 it to climb hills by pushing it from behind with her coiled- 

 up trunk. 



Tusks of males weigh on an average 33 pounds. Their 

 thickness and length differ according to the country in 

 which they are found. Thus, I have noticed that elephants 

 of the Upper Zambesi have little ivory, while those of the 

 Congo have much ; that the tusks of the former are short 

 and thick, whereas those of the latter are long and slender. 

 They are generally the thickness of the fore-arm, 3 feet long, 

 and weigh on an average nine pounds in adult females ; 

 the tusks of males average from 33 pounds to extraordinary 

 weights. I repeat that they are generally from 33 to 

 44 pounds, but I have killed elephants whose tusks 

 weighed 66, 83^-, 92^-, and even 114^- pounds each. At 

 the Antwerp Exhibition among the Congo exhibits, was 

 a tusk weighing nearly 200 pounds! These weights are 

 quite exceptional. The ordinary length of tusks, varying 

 from 33 to 44 pounds, is about 4 feet 6 inches; but I have 

 seen them almost double that length. I believe that the 

 milieu in which elephants live dry or wet country, plain 



