WAY OF ELEPHANTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 11

WAY OF ELEPHANTS

DEAD CARCASES DISMEMBERED BY ANIMALS

WOMAN HUNTER’S SKILL Big game hunters in Africa have long been puzzled by the question “where do elephants die?” A simple solution of the mystery is offered by Captain C. R. BillyardLeake, hunter and wild life cinematographer, who arrived in Sydney on August 29. He thinks that dead elephant carcases are quickly dismembered by hyenas and other jungle denizens, and that soon after the skulibone, which is comparatively small, quickly becomes buried. Ch-ptain Billyard-Leake supports his theory in this way. A bull elephant was brought down by his wife one afternoon. Next day they returned to find that animals had eaten the trunk. That evening three lions returned to the corpse. Three months later the scene was again revisited, but there was no trace of the elephant. HUNTING AT 18. Captain Billyard-Leake Is a member of the well-known family which lent Harefield, Middlesex, as a hospital during the war, a hospital well known to hundreds of Australians. Mrs. Billyard-Leake accompanies her husband. Still in hex* twenties, and mother of two childi-en, she is one of the youngest big game hunters in the world. She Is a daughter of Mrs. F. W. Greswolde-Williams, of Kenya, owner of a 70,000-acre ranch. Her husband is very proud of her exploits with the guu. He said that at 18 • she bi-ought down two elephants. Her most exciting experience, perhaps, was a visit to her tent in the dead of night by a leopard in search of a puppy. An Alsatian sprang at the leopard, and in the din which ensued the leopard rushed into the wilds with the Aisatian in pursuit. AFTER RHINOCEROS Another adventure was the trailing of a rhinoceros when Captain BillyardLeake was seeking photographs. A car was used, but it was quickly deemed unsuitable, for tbe rhinoceros charged for a distance of 100 yards, and the car was swei-ved just in time. The pursuit was resumed in a lorrv, but the l-hinoceros had had enough, and refused to oblige with a close-up photograph. * Captain Billyard-Leake says the natives regard elephant fat as possessing magic properties. The native will rub it on a sick cow, confident that the cow will soon be well again. Other properties are attributed to it, and natives will travel miles to get tbe fat. It costs a visitor £IOO to obtain a hunting licence in Kenya and a further £ 100 for permission to shoot elephants. Good elephants are becoming scarce because of the hunting by visitors, principally Americans. Captain and Mrs. Billj-ard-Leake will settle in N.S.W., going on the land.