MY SOMALI BOOK 275 



with considerable weight, and big bones forward, but 

 thin-skinned, and posteriorly comparatively slight in 

 build. 



It has been suggested to me that the window pane 

 example is fallacious, for the reason that only a small 

 portion of the bullet's energy is expended upon the 

 glass as compared with the whole of its energy expended 

 when fired into and (if effective) remaining in the body 

 of an animal. It is no doubt true that there is no 

 real analogy between the two cases, thus considered. 

 The illustration is nevertheless of value as showing the 

 different character of the effects produced by bullets 

 of low and high velocities respectively in overcoming 

 the same amount of resistance as they pass through 

 the pane. 



I have tried to show that, within limits, a slow- 

 travelling bullet causes greater immediate shock-effect 

 than a more speedy one. I am unable to give the 

 correct scientific explanation ; but of two similar 

 bullets the one with the lower velocity overcomes the 

 resistance more slowly, and therefore, as it seems to 

 me, its effect is less local and the system of the animal 

 feels it more. Its shock-effect has, I think, some 

 connection with the elasticity of the body struck, 

 and the fact that the striking of any solid body sets up 

 vibrations through its substance. The window pane 

 example seems to confirm this idea. It is the outcome 

 of the blow on the body, rather than of the subsequent 

 wound made in the body, and may therefore for con- 

 venience' sake be styled " impact-shock." Illustrative 

 examples could easily be multiplied to show, what 

 experience with bullets confirms, that it is a fact. 



