AFRICAN ELEPHANTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4957, 29 March 1926, Page 4

AFRICAN ELEPHANTS.

MOST DANGEROUS ANIMALS.

HABITS AND PECULIARITIES.

To those who believe in the Darwin theory it must sometimes have occurred that in the earlier stages, of development any ajnimal other than man might have taken the supremacyspeculation on those lines suggests the likelihood that if human beings had not been supreme the elephant might have been—a possibility supported by an interesting account about elephants'’published, in “Chambers’s Journal” by Major W. R. Foram, in the course of which he writes

Of aJI wild animals the elephant is

the best known, and at the same time the leapt known, paradoxical, as this may sound.

Elephants that are seen in captivity in Europe are Asiatic specimens, and all. are undersized —even the very laj-gest of them. The two varieties,—

the African and the Asiatic —differ ap much from each other as they do from the mammoth and similar extinct forms that existed in the “Stone

Age.” A full-grown African elephant is nearly twice the size of any Asiatic

elephant ever brought to Europe. I have ishot several in Central Africa that must have weighed at least twice as much as any Indian, elephant-— possibly more; and they stood close upon ,thirteen feet in height. . There exists a wide divergence of opinion amongst experts in big-game hunting as to ,the relative dangerous qualities possessed by the larger Wild game. Few can be fount! to agree ■upon the correct order.of precedency. Each man judges in ,the light of MS

own personal experience—which, after

all, is the .only correct basis upon which to form any definite opinion. However, the majority of them appeal 1 to be agreed that the African elephant is the most da.nger.ous of all big game to hunt; and, pf the others, only a few have failed to class it as second on the list. T he choice seems to lie between the elephant and the I’ioh for the premier place. Personally I place them in the following order: the African elephant, tne African buffalo, the tiger, the lion, the rhinoceros,. ’ • A ■ : 1 have heard ma.ny hunters assert that the lion is by far the.most dan-.

gerous animal to hunt: yet, in, com-

mon with quite- ( a number of. others; I have ridden lions, down on hbrseback and shot them with revolvers. The late. Paul J. Rainey^/the American millionaire, became'world-famous by hunting down lions, with-a, pack of hounds. It may aiiso be stressed that/ the death-roll 'from lions isi ever so much greater than' from any other species of'wild animals in :,the’world : but this fact is attributable to acts of, negligence- committed' by the hunters in ninety-nine .cases 1 out of every hundred. There are men who 1 have been so foolhardy as. t 6 Tollow a. wounded lion into', long grask; when the chances were all. against the hunters; but thisi fact) does not tend ,to prove that .the lion 'is the most dangerous. The late Colonel Theodore . -Roosevelt placed dangerous animals- in the following order : Lion, ; elephant, buffalo, rhinoceros; < \ The ancient civilisation of India boasts as- one oE its many ’ great achievements,, the taming of the

Asiatic variety of elephant. In the ancient lore ofthat early form of civilisation this fact playsi a very distinguished, role. But the African variety hais* never yet been tamed, 'and-it does not seem that'this, task will ever be accomplished.r It': lias* been attempted, but without any degree of success. ' No experiments; in animal training have ever, failed so signally as, those practised on elephants in Central, Africa. This f'ailure'.is: in no way due to lack of intelligence on the part of the elephant -family who roam the forest of ,thq “Dark? 'Continent.” They are not one wJnit less brainy than their cousins in A&ia.' Next; perhaps, to the highest type of apes, the- elepha jit is the wisest

and most intelligent 6f all,’ animals.

This remark applies with equal force to all elephants! o;f no. matter which variety. In many- yespectis' they surpass even .the f;reat intelligence! of the higher apes >- or monkeys, which most .nearly ap l proximates, to. that, enjoyed by human beings. For this, 'reason we may. claim quite justly that, the elephan'.t possesses the' 1 highest type of intelligence. Those who have seen the domesticated Asian elephants at work in the timber depots of Burnra, ulndia, and Siam, will readily grar,t that they a,re most amazingly . int elligent- Their wisdom. is almost ’"incredible, 'and ’certainly uncanny at' tames. .

Another interesting feature about the two types of .elephant is that they stand unique among the beasts ok great bulk for the fact that with growth in size there has been a marked growth in brain power. The rhinoseros is, found in the Bame region as the African elephant, and in bulk is second only to the elephant among all terrestrial but the elephant is the wisest and the rhinoceros the most stupid of all big animals. Both ' animals wandered freely. over ..the plains of East Africa less than fitfy years l ago; but such is not the case to-day. The elephant learns and profits by experience infinitely more readily than the rhinoceros. As a rule, therefore, it will be found that the former no longer live.s in the open country ; but the rhinoceros continues .to dwell there and to risk being exterminated. An elephant will generally cross the plajns only at night-time, for he knows quite well that danger lies inhere during the hours, of daylight. No elephant, in regions where they are being hunted regularly, would 'be so foolish as, to habitually ispend his, days in the open plains ; yet this is exactly what the stupid rhinoceros does. . It is'not, widely, realised that, in Africa, the bull elephants are rarely the fighters. They are more generally —the big fellows,, I mean—.tp be found singly or in small parties by themselves. In the breeding season I have seen the co.ws' and calves travelling in herds at some distance behind the bulls ; and the latter were then ,to be found either alone or in smaUj-groups,. However, one may occasionally see—especially in large : herds;—the big bulls mingling with, the cow& On one occasion four bulls charged, out from a herd of cows at a friend and myself, whilst the rest of the big herd of eev’eral hundred crashed away from us. : It wasr a very awkward moment for both of us—but The. four bulls met a, gallant death with their faces:.to the enemy. Oh. still another, occasion I had a . very nasty experience whilst trying to cut out a big l bulb from amongst a herd of- cows, and;ha'd.to, crawl away 1 to safety between the-legs of several female elephants—all of whom? , were , ready ito stampede if they could only , get my wind. However, I finally, managed to shoot the old* fellow' a few days: later, and his immense tusks —one of them weighed a hundred and sixty-nine ■pounds, and stood over eleven feet 1 high—were ample reward ’ahd. compensation for my earlier’,terrors.