722 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
tramping of the huge feet. As soon as the elephants entered 
reeds or tall grass, the herons all flew up and lit on their 
heads and backs. With their trunks the elephants could 
readily have gotten rid of the birds, but from the oldest to 
the youngest—perhaps a pink calf—they evidently accepted 
the situation as a matter of course. 
Elephants, like most game, spend the major part of their 
time eating; but unlike most game their food is of great 
variety. They graze and browse indifferently. They are 
fond of making inroads on the fields of the natives, devouring 
immense quantities of beans and corn and melons, and 
destroying far more than they devour. They are fond of 
various fruits, some of them so small that it must be both 
laborious and delicate work to pick them in sufficient num¬ 
bers to stay the giant beasts’ appetite. We have watched 
one feeding on grass; it behaved in the usual leisurely ele¬ 
phant manner, plucking a roll of grass with its trunk, per¬ 
haps waving it about, and then tucking it away into its 
mouth. In the stomach of another we found bark, leaves, 
abutilon tips, and the flowers and twig ends of a big shrub 
or bush Dombeya nairobiensis. They wreck the small trees 
on which they feed, butting or rather pressing them down 
with their foreheads, or getting on their knees and uproot¬ 
ing them with their tusks. They are fond of feeding on the 
acacias, although it is hard to see how they avoid wounding 
both their trunks and their tongues and jaws with the 
thorns. We have watched one break off an acacia branch, 
thrust it into its mouth, and withdraw it with the leaves 
stripped off. Many of the branches it will chew to get the 
sap, and then spit out; these chewed branches or canes, to¬ 
gether with the wrecked trees, mark plainly the road a herd 
