io Great and Small Game of Africa 



swim with their heads and part of their tusks above water, but I have 

 never seen them swimming myself. 



When very young, African elephants have a good deal of long coarse 

 hair on their heads round the orifices of the ears, which gradually dis- 

 appears as they grow up. As with rhinoceros calves, young elephants 

 will remain by the carcase of their dam if she should be shot, and will 

 charge anything that approaches them with superb fearlessness, raising 

 their ears and screaming lustily the while. I have seen one so small that, 

 when it charged, I seized it by its little trunk with one hand, and catching 

 hold of one of its forelegs with the other, was able to throw it on its back 

 with ease. In countries where food is abundant, and where they teel 

 themselves absolutely safe from molestation, elephants lead a lazy life and 

 do very little travelling. They feed at nights and in the early mornings, 

 and stand sleeping sometimes in the shade of trees, but often in jungle 

 not high enough to completely cover them (when their backs and the 

 top of their heads are therefore exposed to the full heat of the sun), 

 until late in the afternoon. As they stand sleeping or dozing, they keep 

 continually moving their great ears, twitching them slightly forwards 

 from their necks at very frequent and regular intervals. This constant 

 movement of the ears may be intended to keep flies off their necks, over 

 the back of which they often blow a pinch of fine sand, picked up from 

 the ground with the hand-like extremity of the proboscis, possibly with 

 the same purpose. Where food is scarce and scattered, or where elephants 

 are much hunted, they travel enormous distances, only resting during the 

 very hottest hours of the day ; and unless their tracks are crossed while 

 still quite fresh, a hunter is not likely to come up with them. A few 

 years ago, in the forests on the northern slope of Mashunaland, where 

 there were still a good many elephants, and where in the winter months 

 the sun was not intensely hot at any time of day, it appeared to me that 

 these animals scarcely took any rest at all. At any rate, I have often 



