Paul Belles, age 9, of Albany, NY., for his question:

How fast can an elephant walk?

The elephants come from the hot tropics where the days and even the nights are warm throughout the whole year. Their native lands are india and africa. In our cooler country, we see them only in zoos and circuses. And the jumbo we see is almost surf to be the Indian elephant. He is a little smaller and a lot more willing to take orders than his African cousin.

The first time you saw an elephant, he most likely took your breath away. Your eyes popped and your mouth fell open at the sight of the whopping fellow. After a while you felt that he was a gentle giant. You watched him step slowly around the back yard of his house at the zoo. If you were lucky, you saw him perform at the circus. He did what he had to do very slowly. But this did not surprise you. No one would expect the whopping fellow to move his huge body in a hurry.

Chances are your jumbo was an Indian elephant. He might tip the scales at four tons and weigh as much as eight medium size horses. If you stood on your father's shoulders you might be ab1e to reach up to the top of his mighty head. Papa jumbo has a pair of tusky teeth, perhaps eight feet long. Each tusk could weigh as much as a man. You would never expect him to tote all this weight around in a hurry. You would never expect him to scurry as fast as a little mouse.

But he can. Giant jumbo can travel much faster than a mouse. However, it is not true that he is afraid of mice, and he never, never runs away from the furry little mice who feed in his manger of hay. If he wishes, he can outrun a house cat or a whole pack of ordinary dogs. But he never runs away from these fel1ows either. In his native jung1e his only enemy is the tiger. This fierce cat can spurt after his victims at 60 miles an hour but jumbo cannot travel this fast.

In the wilds, jumbo travels with a herd of his friends and relatives, young and old. As a rule, they walk through the jung1e at six to eight miles an hour  which is almost twice as fast as you can walk. What's more, the gent1e giants go silently. Junior learns to step softly and walk without bashing noisily into trees and branches. When startled, the herd speeds up perhaps to 10 miles an hour  moving silently away from the trouble. Somet1mes an angry papa elephant charges at an enemy. And he can rush forward, trumpeting with fury, at 20 to 25 miles an hour.

In spite of his huge size, the elephant walks on quiet feet, and his movements are light and very graceful. Over a long distance he travels faster than you can walk or run. And, of all things, the huge fellow can swim. He is very fond of the water, and every day he likes to find a stream where he can take a shower and perhaps plaster himself with mud. Sometimes the whole herd takes to the water and swims happily across a river or perhaps downstream where they expect to find leafier trees and greener grasses. For the gentle giants eat only vegetables, salads and other plant food.