igo BIG GAME SHOOTING 



The beast with the best head is not unfrequently in an 

 awkward position for a shot, or out of range, and the stalker, 

 being unable to improve his position or get nearer for fear of 

 being seen by some of the other beasts, has either to risk a 

 long shot at the best head or content himself with an easier 

 and more certain shot at an inferior one. In this case, it is far 

 better to give up the stalk for the time, and try your luck another 

 day. 



As an example of what can be done by a little patience and 

 perseverance, I was successful in bagging the finest specimen 

 of a bull eland ever shot by a European in East Africa, after 

 a very long and tedious stalk on five consecutive days. This 

 grand beast was accompanied by three cows, and each day they 

 were found in the same locality, never more than a mile from 

 the place at which I left them the previous day. This was a 

 narrow strip of open plain, some two miles long by about a 

 mile in width, which opened out at each end into a large open 

 plain. The narrow strip was bordered on each side by thick 

 bush and clumps of forest trees, and this appeared to be used 

 by the enormous herds of game as a passage from one plain to 

 the other. As I always found these four elands standing out 

 well towards the middle of the strip, where there were only a 

 few isolated mimosa-trees dotted about, the stalking was very 

 tedious work, and as there was no covert but grass twelve to 

 eighteen inches high, it was necessary to make a long crawl from 

 the very outskirts of the bush. On each of the first three days I 

 almost succeeded in getting within range, when the elands were 

 alarmed by a shot fired in the distance and moved off, after- 

 wards standing in such an exposed position that a stalk was 

 quite impossible. On the fourth morning I was stalking them 

 across the wind, which was blowing from my left, and was again 

 nicely reducing the distance between myself and the bull, who 

 was standing by himself under the shade of a thorn-tree, whilst 

 the cows were quietly feeding some twenty yards beyond him. 



As I lay under the shade of a small bush, which was within 

 about 300 yards of the elands, taking a short rest, I noticed all 



