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F 
THE ELEPHANT 205 
_ tusks be little bigger than the lower incisor teeth of a bull 
hippo. 
In the dry weather elephants take up their quarters in the 
thick forests at high altitudes—from 6,000 to 9,000 feet—such 
as Kikuyu, Mau, and Lykepia, and in the belts of forest on 
Kilimanjaro, Kenia, Elgon, and Ruwenzori, rather, perhaps, 
for the sake of food and water—both plentiful in such places 
—than for the sake of the shade. ~In the wet weather they 
leave the forests and roam out into the open, where food and 
water have again become abundant, and they are quite as 
likely as not to be found during the heat of the day standing 
in long grass with no shade of any kind. It is difficult fora 
-man who has never hunted elephants, or seen places where 
they have stopped to feed, to realise the tremendous havoc 
they play in those places which are much frequented by them, 
and the amount of wilful damage they do for no apparent 
reason. When hunting them I have often come across places 
_ where the herd I was following had stopped and scattered 
__ about to feed, and the amount of wreckage created in the 
_ short time before they had again moved on was astounding. 
_ Trees of various kinds had been broken down and uprooted 
in all directions for the sake of a few twigs and young shoots 
which could have been plucked off equally well whilst the 
trees stood ; bushes had been pulled up and thrown on one 
side with scarcely a leaf off ; branches of larger trees had 
been torn off without a twig or piece of bark having been 
_ eaten; wisps of long grass lay all round, pulled up by the 
roots, but otherwise untouched, whilst the grass where the herd 
_ had stood was knocked down and trampled under foot by 
their huge feet. In fact, the whole place had more the 
appearance of a playground than of a feeding-place, and I am 
inclined to think that a good deal of the damage caused by 
elephants is done simply for amusement. I have come across 
other places where an equal amount of damage has befallen 
_the same kind of trees and bushes, but with every proof 
that the elephants really have fed. The trees have been well 
