A TOUGH RHINO. :;. 51 



me, I took it, and got two snapshots of the animal before I finished it with a bullet in 

 the neck. The men had brought a kettle and some tea and scones, and while 

 coming along had found some delicious honey which they had brought along, too, in a 

 bent piece of bark. 



Being rather hungry, I made a good meal and, after cutting off the roan's head 

 and letting the men take the meat, I started back to camp, killing a warthog and a 

 waterbuck on the way. The former was a long shot, the bullet striking it in the chest 

 and killing it at once. 



I only wounded the waterbuck, but he stood again, when I hit him in the lungs, 

 and he only managed to run about a hundred yards, falling dead in some long grass. 

 The lung shot is very deadly for all game, although they generally run some way 

 before falling dead. 



When animals are hit through the heart they usually dash of? at a quick pace, 

 and fall after going a short distance. 



A bullet in the brain, neck, or spine always drops game where they stand. I 

 prefer the shoulder shot for all antelopes, for the bone will be broken and splinters 

 sent into the cavity of the body. For elephants the brain shot is the neatest, for 

 when properly struck the beast collapses. Unless very close it presents a difficult 

 target, and should not be tried unless the beast is broadside on. A facing head- 

 shot at an elephant is most difficult on account of the sloping forehead. Some 

 men make a point of only shooting for the heart, and certainly fewer elephants 

 will be lost with this shot than the one at the brain. If an elephant escapes 

 after being hit in the head he will seldom die, but this is not so with beasts hit 

 in the body. 



It seldom pays to follow a wounded elephant or rhino far, for they keep going 

 until they drop, and do not lie down like most other animals after going for a 

 short way. Mr. Selous mentions this, and I have found it to be so in nearly 

 every case. 



The following day I sent most of my men out to bring in the meat of the rhino, 

 and also his head and feet. 



While I am writing about rhinos, I may mention another which I shot recently 

 which had grown a third horn, or the signs of one, for behind the usual posterior horn 

 there was a knob about the size of a small fowl's egg. In time this might have 

 developed into a third horn, for it was composed of the same substance as the other 

 horns and was quite as hard. I have heard of three other cases of the same thing, but 

 Mr. Selous, who devotes a whole chapter to the two species of rhinos found in Africa* 

 in his " A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa," does not mention a similar case, so I 



