XIII A USEFUL RIFLE 287 



In concluding my remarks upon Southi African 

 lions, I will only say that I have found them to be 

 far less tenacious of life than any of the antelope 

 tribe in the same country, and more easily disabled. 

 When shot through the heart or lungs they die far 

 more quickly than even a small antelope would do 

 with a similar wound. 



No weapon, in my opinion, can be more suitable 

 for lion-shooting than a good 450 Express (made by 

 such makers as Gibbs or Rigby, for example), with 

 the ordinary hollow bullet ; and those writers who 

 class such a soft-skinned easily-killed beast in the 

 same category as the elephant, and advocate large 

 rifles for both, and those, again, who contend that 

 because a lion can be killed without difficulty with 

 an Express, it is therefore unsportsmanlike to use a 

 heavier weapon for an elephant, appear to me to 

 reason from false premisses. There is relatively as 

 much difference between the tenacity of life in the lion 

 and the elephant as there is between a snipe and a 

 wild goose, and it would be just as expedient to use 

 the same-sized bullet for the two former animals as 

 the same-sized shot for the two birds. 



