Letitia Shore, age 8, of High Point, N.C., for her question:

CAN AN ELEPHANT SWIM?

Big Jumbo weighs as. much as four tons, so you might expect him to sink like a stone to the bottom. Surely swimming would be impossible for such a big bulky animal. But this is not so at all. An elephant can swim very well  and what's more, he loves every minute of it. In fact, he enjoys everything about a river and usually stays nearby. When the hot season dries up the water, he plays in the mud.

Elephants often swim across wide rivers to find food on the other side. Some people claim that they may take a swim in the sea just for fun. Sometimes the family herd steps deeper and deeper into a river  and swims for miles and miles. At other times elephants splash around in a shallow stream and use their trunks to squirt showers of water over their backs.