Raman Sukumar is a leading naturalist and a key member of `Project Elephant', a scheme set up by the Indian government to protect the elephant along the lines of `Project Tiger'. This is a highly readable account of his experiences during ten years of research on the Indian elephant.Anecdotal, but at the same time thoroughly sound in terms of its scholarship, this book looks at the relationship of the Indian elephant to the people with which it shares the land, and the elephants' effects on the environment and the ecology of southern India. It also gives a full account ofelephant behaviour and of the effects that environmental degradation and ivory poaching are having on elephant population numbers.