When waiting by night for elephants to approach a fountain, he “heard a low rumbling noise ..., caused (as the Bechuanas affirmed) by the bowels of the elephants which were approaching the fountain.” (Page 261.) “A child can put a hundred of them [elephants][110] to flight by passing at a quarter of a mile to windward.” (Page 263.) It is incredible how many “goodly” trees an elephant will destroy, sometimes wantonly. (265.) An elephant’s friend will protect its wounded companion at the risk of its own life. (268.) The rhinoceros-birds stick their bills in the ear of the rhinoceros and wake him up when the hunter is approaching. They live on ticks and other parasitic insects on his body. He perfectly understands their warning. He has chased a rhinoceros many miles on horseback and fired many shots before he fell, and all the while the birds remained by him, perched on his back and sides, and as each bullet struck him they ascended about six feet into the air, uttering a cry of alarm, and then resumed their position. Sometimes they were swept off his back by branches of trees. When the rhinoceros was shot at midnight, they have remained by his body thinking him asleep, and on the hunter’s approaching in the morning have tried to wake him up. (Page 293.) The Bechuanas make a pipe in a few moments by kneading moistened earth with their knuckles on a twig, until a hole is established, then one end of the aperture is enlarged with their fingers for a bowl. (Page 306.) _Dec. 31._ I observe that in the cut by Walden Pond the sand and stones fall from the overhanging bank and rest on the snow below; and thus, perchance, the stratum deposited by the side of the road in the winter can permanently be distinguished from the summer one by some faint seam, to be referred to the peculiar conditions under which it was deposited. The pond has been frozen over since I was there last. Certain meadows, as Heywood’s, contain warmer water than others and are slow to freeze. I do not remember to have crossed this with impunity in all places. The brook that issues from it is still open completely, though the thermometer was down to eight below zero this morning. The blue jays evidently notify each other of the presence of an intruder, and will sometimes make a great chattering about it, and so communicate the alarm to other birds and to beasts. III JANUARY-APRIL, 1851 (ÆT. 33)