Elephants live in herds like buffaloes. There are from twenty-five to one hundred in a herd. They wander about together in the woods and on the open plains of Africa and India, wherever there is plenty of grass, low plants and trees, near water. They sleep in the forest. As early as three o'clock, long before the sun rises, a herd is on the march. They go in single file, the big bulls in front breaking a path through the thickest jungle. Then come the cows, and last the mothers with babies. This is the order in which Indians travel, the warriors ahead and the children in the rear.

If danger threatens, the bulls trumpet a warning. All the others stop, and the bulls line up to give battle to the enemy. Some people think that only the flesh-eating animals are dangerous. This is a mistake, as you must know when you remember how savage some bulls of domestic cattle are. African bull elephants are so fierce the lion tucks his tail between his legs and slinks away, when he hears one trumpeting. The tiger sometimes attacks the smaller East Indian elephant, and often gets the worst of it.

African explorers and travellers say a charging bull elephant is a grand and terrible sight. He blows his mighty trumpet in a blast that can be heard for miles, lowers his head with its six foot tusks, and tosses his trunk up out of danger. He knows how easily that precious member, all delicate muscles and nerves, might be injured by claw or spear. When a tiger springs, the bull catches him on the tusks, tosses him twenty feet in the air, gives him a swinging blow with the trunk as he comes down that stuns him, then pins him to the earth with the tusks, or tramples him under his three tons of weight. It is said that every pair of tusks brought out of Africa has cost one or more human lives.

Usually a herd marches to the feeding ground unmolested. There they pull the grass up by the roots, beat the earth off on their front legs, give the bundles neat twists, and poke them back into their mouths. They pull up bushes and break off high leafy branches. They even uproot small trees, prying with the tusks and pulling with the trunks. Cocoanuts are cracked and shelled by rolling underfoot. They are fond of palm nuts, sugar cane and yams, a kind of sweet potatoes. In captivity elephants are fed on hay and carrots, but they just love peanuts, popcorn and candy. A herd of one hundred wild elephants will eat ten tons of food a day.

About sunrise the whole herd takes a bath. They go on a shuffling run to the nearest "ole swimmin'" hole. Into the water they go up to their eyes. They frolic like so many school boys, shouting at the tops of their—trumpets, slapping and splashing water over each other. The babies ride on their mother's backs, slide off and learn to swim. Often a herd plays in the water for an hour. Before coming out they suck up as much as ten gallons of water each, through the hollow trunks and stow it away in water pockets in their stomachs. Later in the day, when they want a drink or a shower bath, they bring this water up and use it. The camel seems to be the only other animal that has storage tanks inside for water.

Old hunters in Africa and India say members of a herd look alike as do members of a human family. Some herds are made up of animals that are large and strong and bright minded. In other herds the animals are smaller, weaker and more stupid. In East India the natives speak of elephants as low caste and high caste, and say there is as much difference as there is between breeds of dogs and horses. And no hunter will go after a "rogue" elephant. A "rogue" is a tramp elephant. For some reason he has left his herd, or been driven out. No other herd will admit him, so he turns sour and becomes very dangerous, fighting every living thing he meets, and destroying what he cannot eat.