ELEPHANTS 
719 
bushbuck in the forests, the hartebeests on the plains, the 
oryx in dry, almost desert country. But the elephant wan¬ 
ders everywhere, being equally at home in the haunts of 
bushbuck, oryx, and hartebeest. It goes high among the 
cold bamboo belts of the mountains; it loves the hot, dense, 
swampy lowland forests; it lives in the barren desert where 
it has to travel a score of miles for a drink of bitter water. 
Sometimes herds make long migrations, swarming for sev¬ 
eral months in a locality, while during the rest of the year 
not an elephant will be found within a hundred miles of it. 
Elsewhere they may live in the same neighborhood all the 
year round. On the south slope of Mount Kenia we found 
the elephants living in the daytime in the thick forest, but 
at night often wandering down into the plain to ravage the 
shambas, the cultivated fields near the native villages. In 
the Lado we found herds of elephants living day and night 
in the same places, in the dry, open plains of tallish grass 
sprinkled with acacias and a few palms. The old bulls 
usually keep by themselves, alone or in small parties; herds 
exclusively composed of cows and calves are common; but 
often both sexes mingle in a herd, and some of the largest 
tuskers are always accompanied by herds of cows, which 
seem to take a pride in them and watch over and protect 
them. 
The wide individual and local variation in habits should 
make the observer very cautious about making sweeping 
generalizations; and, moreover, there is often an undoubted 
difference of personal equation in the observer. In Sander¬ 
son’s capital book “The Wild Beasts of India” he states 
that elephant cows do not leave the herd to calve and that 
both bulls and cows habitually lie down. In the parts of 
