. Great and small game of Africa : an account of the distribution… . s one vastelephant preserve. Far from it. Indeed, you might almost travel throughthe length and breadth ot the land without seeing one, if you did notspecially seek for them. Immense tracts are unsuited to the wants of theseanimals ; and, though they may wander through them in their migrations,it is only in certain widely-separated localities that all the conditions offood, water, and cover are present in the due proportions constituting a The Elephant congenial home for them. These conditions ate not such as are commonlysupp
. Great and small game of Africa : an account of the distribution… . s one vastelephant preserve. Far from it. Indeed, you might almost travel throughthe length and breadth ot the land without seeing one, if you did notspecially seek for them. Immense tracts are unsuited to the wants of theseanimals ; and, though they may wander through them in their migrations,it is only in certain widely-separated localities that all the conditions offood, water, and cover are present in the due proportions constituting a The Elephant congenial home for them. These conditions ate not such as are commonlysupposed to appertain to an ideal elephant haunt. It is not in the coolaisles of shady forests, such as one had been accustomed to associate in hismind with these stately creatures — making up with the giant trees aharmonious picture, such as is sometimes described as their natural habitatin Asia —that we find them. Even in the rare localities where suchsurroundings are to be found in Central Africa, it is not there that theelephant finds his safest Lord Dclamere. Those great trunks and spreading branches offer too convenient harbourfor possible lurking enemies, while the absence of undergrowth wouldexpose the bulky bodies to attack by poisoned arrows or harpoons. Theirtracks, indeed, prove that elephants stray through such forests ; and mudsmeared on trunks here and there — sometimes to a marvellous height,suggesting fabulous size in the plasterer—is the plainest of attestations ;but these visits are paid only in the hours of darkness, as a rule. Notropical luxuriance of vegetation characterises their most frequented 18 Great and Small Game of Africa retreats. The favourite fastness is a dense, but shadeless scrub, little or notaller than themselves ; in the mountains, and sometimes by the rivers,leafy—with a profusion of small, rough, rasping leaves—elsewhere parched,thorny, full of briars and spiky plants ; but ever thick, monotonous,burning, almost
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectg, booksubjectmammals
