forty or fifty yards; but, unfortunately, the cow in front saw me standing in full view on my ant-hill pedestal. They turned straight at me. When the leading cow was as close as I wanted her to get—about twenty-five yards—I fired. She hesitated but again surged on with the others. A second shot knocked her down. The rest surged past her, turned, smelled of her, and ran off into the forest. After a few minutes she got upon her feet and rather groggily went off after them.
Elephants have the reputation of having very bad eyesight. I personally am of the opinion that their sight is pretty good, but on this subject, as on most others about elephants, information is neither complete nor accurate. But my experience makes me think that they can see pretty well. In this case the cow that saw me was only about fifty yards away, but at another time on the Uasin Gishu Plateau an elephant herd charged me from 250 yards with the wind from them to me. The behaviour of this particular herd gave me a clue to their reputation for bad eyesight. The elephant is not afraid of any animal except man, and consequently he is not on the alert for moving objects as are animals that are hunted. Neither does he eat other animals, so he is not interested in their movements as a hunter. In fact, he isn't normally particularly interested in moving objects at all. He pays no attention. When we first came up with this herd on the Uasin Gishu Plateau we could move around within fifty yards of them without attracting their attention. However, after
