740 
AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 
lated springs. No other single species or race of mammal 
in East Africa shows such versatility or superiority over 
the environmental factors which control animal distribu¬ 
tion. To-day these conditions are much altered, owing to 
the persecution of the elephants by ivory hunters and the 
extermination of them over much of the territory. As late 
as thirty years ago the elephants roamed unmolested in 
East Africa, except, perhaps, in the country immediately 
adjacent to the coast, where they were subject to occa¬ 
sional onslaughts by Arab and European trading cara¬ 
vans. Count Teleki’s expedition, in 1887 and 1888, met with 
extraordinary numbers of elephants under conditions which 
to-day are quite unknown. About the southern end of 
Lake Rudolf Teleki found elephants on open plains many 
miles from cover, and had no difficulty whatever in approach¬ 
ing them and shooting any which possessed large tusks. 
Some years later, in the desert region at the foot of Mount 
Marsabit, Lord Delamere found elephants living under 
similar conditions in open country. During his hunting 
operations there he took photographs of many elephants 
standing or resting in the open country, and found little 
difficulty in going up to within a few yards of them by exer¬ 
cising care to keep down-wind. At the present time ele¬ 
phants, although they still exist in limited numbers near 
these localities, are never found in such open country dur¬ 
ing daylight. The well-known migratory routes formerly 
used by elephants in East Africa in going from one feeding- 
ground to another are no longer in use, the elephants being 
at the present time so reduced in numbers that they are 
confined to certain patches of forest or bush, from which 
they fear to roam. The elephants remaining in British 
East Africa are to-day confined to the forest area on the 
slopes of Mount Kenia; to the Aberdare forest; the western 
slope of the Mau Escarpment, in the Kisi country, east of 
the Victoria Nyanza and south of the Uganda Railway; 
the forested region of Mount Elgon, from which they wander 
occasionally east as far as the Uasin Gishu Plateau and the 
west shore of Lake Baringo. From the Elgon region north¬ 
ward and westward they extend rather generally over the 
whole of Uganda and the Nile basin, but they are perma¬ 
nently found in this area only in certain forest tracts; 
