lo Great and Small Game of Africa 



the elephants that have happened upon them : so much so that they will 

 shun the neighbourhood as much as possible so long as any taint is per- 

 ceptible to their keen sense of smell. No other animal, so far as I know, 

 takes the slightest notice of the carcase of its fellow, except when freshly 

 killed, nor shows any desire to avoid the locality where its decaying 

 remains lie. The rhinoceros, for instance, seems quite incapable of recog- 

 nising the carcase of another a member of its kind. 



In this part of Africa 1 the elephant seems to attain its greatest size. 

 Among those killed by me, the actual dimensions (carefully taken and 

 recorded on the spot) of the biggest bull I measured were — height at 

 shoulder (straight) = 10 feet 9 inches; length from root of tail to eye 

 (straight) = 1 2 feet 8 or 9 inches ; circumference of forefoot = 5 feet. 

 Several other bulls of the heaviest type which I measured were hardly, if 

 at all, inferior to this specimen, and the average height of the full-sized 

 male elephant may be fairly put down as from 10 feet 6 inches to 10 feet 

 9 inches. Probably some individuals may stand 1 1 feet when alive. I do 

 not believe I have ever seen one 12 feet high. 



It is here, too, that the tusks are most fully developed, and the largest 

 known tusks have come from this region. Those of a full-grown bull 

 may weigh anything from 50 lbs. to 100 lbs. or more. As pointed out in 

 my book on Elephant Hunting, stallion elephants found among the herds of 

 cows commonly have tusks of about 50 lbs. each, whilst the average of 

 other old bulls' teeth would be from 60 lbs. to 80 lbs. These latter might 

 probably measure about 6 feet in length — of which one-third is in the 

 head and two-thirds protrudes — and some 18 inches or so in greatest 

 circumference. Much larger tusks than these are, however, met with. 

 Up to recently the heaviest known to be in existence was the 184-pounder, 

 measuring 9 feet 5 inches, in the possession of Sir Edmund Loder. This 

 is beaten in length, though not in weight, by a pair I know of in London 



> East Equatorial Africa. 



