78' ROOSEVELT HUMTWG GROUNDS. 



elephants, rhinos, eland and other big game. He is after one kind, not 

 all. His surest plan to get on the track of his particular game is to 

 closely note the browsing indications. A branch torn from a thorn tree, 

 or a bit of chewed thorn dropped on the ground shows that he is in the 

 wake of a rhino, while a long strip of bark torn from the top of a tree 

 would mean elephant. As he walks along the latter is in the habit of 

 gathering young shoots with his trunk and after eating the leaves, 

 throwing little bundles of stalks on either side of the pathway. The 

 eland seems careless and destructive, tearing off great branches from 

 the trees, stripping off the bark and scattering everything right and left. 

 The condition of the browsings left behind also affords the tracker some 

 of his surest indications as to the comparative time which has elapsed 

 since the game was on the ground. The sap at the break of a limb ; the 

 bruise on the grass or bush ; the rubbings of the buck's horns against 

 the tree ; the condition of the droppings — a dozen and one signs will tell 

 the hunter whether he is on a comparatively fresh track. Then, with 

 an intimate knowledge of the habits of the beast — especially his regular 

 times of going to water and his characteristic conduct when he knows 

 that he is stalked — and the hunter will eventually run down his game. 

 The next desideratum is to keep cool, and patiently wait for an oppor- 

 tunity to get in the vital shot. 



THE PROMISING DEATH SHOTS. 



All big game hunters now agree that the brain shot is the proper one 

 for the elephant. But it is not often attempted, from the fact that the 

 brain is ver}^ small in comparison with the bony structure around it. 

 When the sportsman accurately knows the position of the brain — that 

 it is fairly low and well back — he takes the ear orifice and the eye as 

 indexes of the general line of his shot. If he gets a broadside position, 

 he aims for a spot about two inches forward of the ear hole in a line 

 with the eye. A direct frontal shot is avoided as too uncertain. A 

 bullet at the back of the ear, when the elephant's head is turned away 

 from the hunter is usually deadly. The deadliest shot, however, is con- 

 sidered the raking one, by which the bullet is placed at the back of the 

 neck. The heart lies on the right side of the body; but neither the heart 

 nor the lung shot is to be compared with the brain shot. In fact, unless 

 both lungs are pierced the elephant often gets away. 



